


Probable Cause to Cry Uncle

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Fluff, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: Ed is watching his nephew for the weekend, and Roy is significantly more screwed than he bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fic for vanyali07! ♥ Premise-wise, Hughes is alive, and Ed still has alchemy/automail/etc., because we said so. :D (Well, the first half was Vanyali's idea, and I loved it; the second part is because I'm weak for that crap. XD) I took some liberties with Nate, but considering the enormous quantity of precociousness that canon offered for his genes, I felt like that was okay. X'D

Roy Mustang is a man of such innumerable talents that most of them don’t even receive any attention—which is a good thing these days, since lately one of his best-honed skills is surreptitiously ogling Edward Elric.

There are, of course, two primary problems with this incomparable aptitude: the first is that Riza sees it and knows exactly what he’s doing regardless of how covert he is at any given time; the second is that Ed doesn’t notice a damn _thing_ , which means that absolutely nothing but a smidgeon of eye-strain has come of it thus far.

That’s all right.  Ed has found his feet now, after a bit of rest and a bit of traveling and a bit of auditing university courses and complaining vociferously to anyone who will listen about the content; he’s returned to Roy’s command of his own free will, and that in itself is a blessing past description.  He’s here, present and accounted for and much more inclined to respect hierarchical authority at least seventy percent of the time, and that’s more than Roy would have asked or could have hoped for.  It would be obscene to fish for more—hubris has hamstrung better men.  Roy is not in the business of cordially inviting his own destruction; it has a tendency to slam the door open and stroll on in without his assistance as it is.

Maes, of course, calls him a coward at every opportunity and insists that _asking_ is the least that Roy could do for both of their sakes—Roy’s not sure whether this is his sake and Ed’s; or his and the sake of Maes’s thinning patience, and he imagines that requesting clarification would extend the rant by another thirty minutes, give or take.

But Maes doesn’t understand—not really.  Maes lives a long way from the precipice.  Maes hasn’t even seen the cliff’s edge in so long that he’s forgotten what the wind feels like, and he doesn’t remember the way the fear clambers up your throat every instant that you dare to look down.

It’s not just the sheer rock face and the waves below: there’s more at stake than just Roy’s feelings, or his pride, or the insulated little inner world he hides in.  Ed has _settled_.  They’ve all settled; they’ve all made peace; they’ve all found a way to fit together.  The work at hand is more important than what could be waiting on the other side of _Might I take you out for dinner sometime?_ —more important than the likelihood of _Eew, what?  Uh, no, thanks.  Ever._

It’s also more fragile, and more perilous and precious than it was before.  Ed is an integral part of this team now—incisive and instinctive as ever, in a way that balances out Roy’s scheming and Riza’s unyielding rationality better than he ever would have dared to expect.  Ed injects a dose of drive and energy and sheer ambition that’s reinvigorated all of them, and it’s magnificent, and Roy couldn’t risk that over a _maybe_ , let alone a _most-likely-not_.

And that’s… fine.  That’s fine.  This can be enough.  He’s stretched the life set before him out into something like sufficiency a hundred-thousand times before; his hands and his heart alike are practiced at it now.

Another of his innumerable talents is lying.  Perhaps it goes without saying that the audience is irrelevant; he’s equally proficient at lying to others, and at lying to himself.

It seems to hit him hardest at the end of the week—melodrama is his bread and butter, obviously, but by Fridays he tends to wonder if he verges on maudlin, which is another matter entirely.  Perhaps it should concern him how easy it is to pass one off as the other.  Another talent, or at least a corollary to the last: he’s brilliant at foregrounding minor inconveniences and elevating them to the status of individual apocalypses, the better to bury the real grievances a solid six feet down.

It’s fine.

Everything is fine.

  


* * *

  


“Not to call you out, Major,” Breda says, “b—”

“That’s the worst start to a sentence ever,” Ed says.  “Can’t wait for the rest.”

“Fair,” Breda says.  “I was gonna say you look a little antsy.  Good weekend plans?”

“Oh, man!” Havoc says, and the door between the offices is closed, but Roy has watched this song and dance all the way through enough times to be able to picture him leaning forward eagerly, eyes wide.  “A date!  It’s a date, isn’t it?”

Everything is fine; everything is fine; everything—

“Uh,” Ed says.  “Not… really, but… if it’ll shut you up and get you to stop tryin’ to mooch my plans every time I do stuff, then—yeah.  Sure.  It’s a date.”

There’s a long pause.  Roy rescues himself from the brink of despair and nobly carries on.

“What?” Havoc says.

“He just said it’s not a date,” Breda says.

“No, he just said it _is_ a date,” Havoc says.

“Technically, yes,” Falman says.  “But I believe that was intended to be understood as ironic, to the effect th—”

“If you don’t have a date,” Havoc says, “can I date your date?”

“I give up,” Breda says.

“There is no date,” Fuery says.

Havoc makes a sad noise.  “But he said—”

“Sir,” Riza says from where she’s standing at the corner of Roy’s desk, watching him stare absently at the closed door while he listens.

“I was thinking,” he says.  “Intently.  Very intently.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“It’s Friday,” he says.

“I’d noticed,” she says.

“Do _you_ have plans?” he asks.

“That is entirely beside the point,” she says.

“I tried,” Roy says.

The corner of her mouth twitches.  “A valiant effort, sir.”

“Thank you,” he says.

He does actually work after that—for the better part of an hour, he would like the record to show, despite the fact that it’s _Friday_ , and the day’s nearly over, and sitting here wondering exactly how ironic Ed’s not-a-date-maybe-a-date-maybe-just-a-meeting-maybe-nothing-at-all was meant to be is truly excruciating.

At least he’s finished digging his way out of the most time-sensitive report, which gives him an excuse to get up from his desk, stretch extensively, sneak a glance at the clock, get caught sneaking a glance at the clock, and slink out into the larger office to offer the report to Fuery.

“Sergeant,” he says, “can you run this over to Investigations for m—”

The door swings open, and Alphonse Elric—dripping with brightly-colored accoutrements, both arms full of toddler—bursts through it.

“Hi, everyone!” he says, sounding slightly strained and more-than-slightly out of breath.  “So sorry!  Brother, I hate so much to do this to you, but—Winry’s patient’s condition just nosedived, and she’s really going to need help stabilizing him—do you think—I’m sorry—”

“The heck are you sorry for?” Ed asks, scrambling out of his seat and over to the doorway, where he reaches across himself to grab Al’s shoulder with his left hand and gently squeeze.  Then he extends the right hand towards the extremely uncertain-looking boy curling up closer to Alphonse’s chest.  “Hey, Nate-o!”  Ed wriggles his metal fingers, and they glint in the light, and the toddler assesses his face for another second before latching onto them with both hands.  “You get woken up from your nap so Mom and Dad can go run off and help somebody?  Is that it?”

Alphonse’s grimace is better confirmation than the child’s slow, tentative nod, but then Nate releases Ed’s hand in favor of holding both arms out towards him.

“Yeah, I know,” Ed says, and with a swift, efficient transfer of weight—cautious on Ed’s side, leading with the left arm—Nate changes hands and then applies his own to examining the shoulder bars on Ed’s jacket.

“I’m so sorry,” Al says again, and then, to the room at large, “Is there—gosh.  We’ll bring a pie over after we deal with this—it’s one of her house calls, and they really need an attending physician, so—”

“Less talking,” Ed says, snatching one colorful bag after another off of Al’s person and slinging them over his other shoulder, “more saving of lives and livelihoods.  Just _go_ ; it’s fine.  I got it.”

Roy hasn’t seen enough of Al in the intervening years for the brightness and the relief of his grin to be anything less than a minor revelation.

“Thank you,” Al says.  “I’m so sorry, everyone, I—”

“ _Go_ ,” Ed says.  “Even Winry can’t make ’em hold the train forever.”

“She’s creative,” Al says.  “But you’re right.”  He steps in close to Ed again to stroke the toddler’s hair back.  “We won’t be gone long, Nate.  It’ll be three days.  Okay?  Can you please promise me you’ll try to have fun with Uncle Ed?”

Distress starts to crumple the boy’s face up into a pout as he looks back and forth between his father and Ed.  His mouth moves, but whatever he says is too quiet for Roy to hear from this distance.

Ed jogs his arm gently to bounce the boy’s weight, and one tiny hand fixes itself in his hair for stability—tight enough against the scalp that Roy expects an outcry of some kind, but Ed doesn’t even seem to notice.

“We’re going to have a great time,” Ed says.  “I bet your dad packed you lots of cool stuff, and we’ll go to the park and the museum and that little pastry place you liked last time.  Does that sound okay?”

The soft, almost conciliatory tone—which Roy has never before heard out of that much-admired mouth, even though it bears more than a passing resemblance to the voice that Roy uses with other generals when he’s zeroing in on the thing that he wants—earns another nod from the boy in Ed’s arms.

“Great,” Al says.  He leans in and kisses his firstborn’s forehead.  “I love you, Nate.  I’ll see you soon—before you know it.  Okay?”

Roy can’t help thinking that perhaps he should try finishing every sentence with a request for verification when he’s talking to the generals.  It might make _them_ less likely to throw tantrums when they don’t like the proceedings, too.

A few more soft words, a quick hug around all of the bags hanging from Ed’s right shoulder, a parting salutation to the frozen-solid team, and another pat of the child’s head ushers Al out the door, and then he’s gone.

The silence stretches for a few seconds.  Ed flutters his metal fingers in front of Nate again, whose tiny, tensed features relax slightly as he starts to explore the joints.

“Uh,” Ed says.  “So… this is my nephew.  Winry’n Al have a house call in Insselberg, and it’s one of those ones where they figure on complications, so they really need Al there as a medic, and… yeah.  Lieutenant—” This, to Riza, of course.  “You, uh… think I could swing some leave time today?”

Ed is not in the habit of squandering his vacation hours, although in retrospect Roy suspects that most of the other unexplained occasions probably involved similar circumstances.

“Of course,” Riza says.  “Let me…”

Roy has known for a long time that his life is not his own—that he forfeited it years ago; that it belongs now to the glass-and-gravel path towards something like redemption.  His life belongs to the lives that he ended, and ruined, and ravaged, and took away.  Alchemy sunk its venomed claws into his soul near the beginning; and he knows, these days, that he can’t claim his own heart anymore.

Having his _body_ betray him is, however, something of a novelty: his hands lay the report down on the desktop, and his feet carry him over to Ed.

“Hello, Nate,” he says, keeping what he hopes is a safe distance.  “I met you once when you were very, very small.  I don’t suppose you remember.”

A twist of genetics has left Nate with dark hair despite how radiantly blond both of his parents are, but the unmistakable gold-tinged Elric eyes—slightly narrowed now with suspicion as he clutches Ed’s hand a little tighter—leave no doubt as to his heritage.  A tiny movement of his chin which may have been meant as a shake of his head surfaces in answer.

Five years ago, a grin like the one Ed unleashes might have taken Roy out at the knees.  Fortunately, he’s had a lot of practice these days.

“This is Roy,” Ed says.  “You don’t have to be scared of him; he’s a big softie.”  How Roy wishes that were true.  “He was hanging around and freakin’ out when you were born.”  That is slander, but Roy will have to prosecute later; right now he’s trying to settle on what degree of smile will telegraph as welcoming to a developing toddler brain without ever verging on deranged.  “He used to help me and your dad out a lot.”

“Speaking of which,” Roy says, trying not to let the triumph show through on his face, “might I give you a ride to your place?  It’s a bit cold for walking, and if he’s already missed his nap…”

Riza sighs, loudly and feelingly—but, more significant than any of its other qualities, with the particular cadence that means that she’s giving in.

“You’re going to have to clock it as leave, too, sir,” she says.  “And you’re taking Sergeant Vissel’s report home to review it over the weekend.”

“Done,” Roy says, striding back into his office to snatch up the report in question, his keys, and his coat before she can change her mind.  “Am I qualified to put ‘Elric chauffeur’ on my résumé after this, do you think?”

“Depends on how well you drive,” Ed says.

At least that leaves Riza smiling as Roy steers Ed and his tiny charge as swiftly as possible out the door.

  


* * *

  


“He’s got a little chair-thing,” Ed’s saying as the bundling of children and their luggage into the back of the car begins.  Once Roy’s opened the back door, Ed sets a serious-faced Nate down on the seat and starts sorting through all of the bags Al left behind.  “For trains and stuff.  Should work for this, if I can _find_ the darn thing…”

Roy stands back, hovering in case his help is needed, at what definitely does not so happen to be a perfect vantage for admiring Ed’s ass, obscurative cavalry skirt notwithstanding.  That would be _tawdry_ , and could constitute taking advantage.  Roy would never do such a thing.  The mere thought is an insult to his upbringing, and his peerless heritage, and the country, most likely, and—

“There we go,” Ed says.  He’s keeps using—a different voice.  Well, he’s using the same voice, by definition, but a tone so different that it sounds like another version of the person Roy has come to know.  “You okay?  Comfy?”  Presumably Nate responds, although the volume of his responses seems to drop whenever anyone else is in the vicinity.

Tragically, Ed realigns his body to settle his ass on the seat instead of displaying it for Roy’s purgatorial enjoyment.  “All right,” he says before Roy has a chance to mourn properly.  “We’re set.  You ready to go, Mustang?”

“Ready to skive off work at the first opportunity, you mean?” Roy says.  Ed’s starting to grin, which is not fair.  He doesn’t even understand how much he’s raised the stakes of a game he hasn’t realized they’re playing.  Roy makes sure to strike a pose, toss his head, and flash the single most blinding of his roguish grins.  “Born ready.”

And then Roy pauses, leans down, picks up the edge of Ed’s cavalry skirt, and tosses it inside onto the seat of the car so that it won’t get caught in the door as Roy shuts it after them.

And that’s fine.  Like everything.  Everything is fine.

  


* * *

  


“Hey,” Ed says, apparently to Roy, once he’s finished pointing out three separate dogs on the sidewalk to the two-year-old.  “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Roy says.  “Really don’t.  If we remind Riza that I’ll stop at nothing to get out of paperwork, she’ll start chaining me to my desk at night.”

“Kinky,” Ed says, so mildly that Roy very nearly chokes on his own spit, which might well have ended in fiery death for all three of them.  “I mean it, though.  Appreciate it a lot, and appreciate you driving real careful.  Al wouldn’t’ve left enough pieces for them to identify if you didn’t, obviously, but—”

Roy chances a glance back at him, and the gleam in his eye makes it evident that he’s mostly joking.

_Mostly_ is less encouraging that it could be, given the subject matter, but Roy’s long since learned to take what he can get.

“In the interests of keeping my corporeal form intact,” Roy says, “you’re very welcome.”

Even if he drives like a particularly coordinated angel, Ed’s laugh may still be the death of him.

  


* * *

  


“You wanna come in?” Ed asks when Roy stops the car along the curb but doesn’t kill the engine.  “Least I could do to thank you for the ride is a cup of tea or something.”  He clears his throat.  “But if you’re busy, that’s cool, too.”

Roy must have a good excuse half-interred somewhere amongst all the rubble in his head.  He must have a very smooth, very glib, very reasonable little lie—

His hand turns the keys and extracts them from the ignition.

“Let me just help you carry everything up,” he says.

Damn it.

  


* * *

  


“Okay, kiddo,” Ed says when they’ve finagled their way through the door—which, for the record, required Ed shifting all of the baggage, fishing his keys out of his pocket, and handing them to Roy to undo the bolt and then the door; which, for the record, involved their hands brushing against each other, whether or not it was Ed’s right one, such that Roy’s not sure the significance registered with Ed; which, for the record, Roy did not react to other than with perhaps a slight twitch of the eyebrow in either case.  Ed’s looking Nate in the eyes.  “Can I set you down for just a second?  I’m gonna take my shoes off, okay?”

“Okay,” Nate murmurs.  He’s been giving Roy suspicious looks progressively less often as they’ve paraded their way up here, so perhaps Roy’s infamous boyish charm is taking hold at last.

Ed places the child down on his feet near a little wooden shoe rack, and Roy is torn between the opportunity to sneak a glance at Ed’s inner sanctum and the opportunity to sneak a glance at Ed’s spine and his back and the fall of his hair as he sheds his jacket and then bends again to work his way out of his boots.

“Can we take your shoes off, too, bud?” Ed’s asking before Roy has resolved any major moral quandaries.  Nate nods and plops down on the carpet, and Ed kneels to start untying the laces of his tiny red-and-white sneakers.  “These are cool.  Is red your favorite color?”

Roy is preoccupied with a slightly more quotidian dilemma: continuing to wear his own boots into a home where that is evidently not the norm would be unspeakably rude; but removing them under the assumption that he’s going to stick around when he claimed that he had no intention of so doing would fall at an almost identical marker on the gaucheness scale.  He’s trapped.

“Yeah,” Nate says, reaching forward to pry the shoes off of his itty-bitty little feet—at that particular thought, Roy feels distinctly as though he has become Maes Hughes for a fraction of a second, which is indescribably bizarre—once Ed has fought through the laces.

“Me, too,” Ed says.  “That’s awesome.”

Nate glances up as Ed tussles with the other sneaker, automail fingers slipping—glances up, that is, and looks directly at Roy.  “What’s his?”

“Huh?” Ed says.  “Oh.  Uh… I dunno.  What’s your favorite color, Roy?”

Here’s another labyrinth populated with monsters that want to devour his flesh and pick their teeth with his shattered bones.  He should have taken his chances with the paperwork.

He can’t exactly say _A very particular golden sort of yellow_.  He can’t say _Anything you’re wearing, because every single color on the visible spectrum sets off your eyes_.  He can’t say _Blue now that you wear it, and I flatter myself to imagine that it’s more for my sake than your own_.

“Ah,” he manages.  “I… green?”

The half-grin Ed gives him does unconscionable things to his guts.  He feels like a sixteen-year-old.  What a wonderful disaster.  “You don’t know your own favorite color, Mustang?”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about it,” Roy says, which is the truth—or a kinder truth than _Anything but the gray and brown and red of the desert, and the death._

“Jeez,” Ed says.  “And people tell _me_ I need to get out more.”

“Who says that?” Roy asks.

“Never mind,” Ed says, helping Nate pop off the second little shoe.  He lines them up one by the other on the top of the shoe shelf and offers Nate both his hands.  “You wanna help me unpack your stuff?”

“Yeah,” Nate says.  “The farm.”

“Oh, good!” Ed says.

Roy blinks.  Although he does not speak two-year-old, Ed is at least conversational—possibly fluent.  Perhaps Roy should buy a book.  At the very least, a translation dictionary.  He might…

He might need it again?  Is that what he was about to think?

He knows better.  He knows better than to hope, let alone to assume; he knows better than to press the universe for permanence in anything.  He knows better than to expect the best-case scenario in any fragment of the world that he’s brave enough to touch.

Ed’s leading Nate over to the center of a little living room—at least, Roy assumes that was the architect’s intended purpose; Ed’s turned it into something much more like a library that happens to incorporate a battered beige couch—and starts unloading the contents of all the bags.

“Okay,” he says, and at this point it’s difficult to tell whether he’s talking to himself or narrating actions to Nate to stimulate a growing brain and encourage new vocabulary.  Roy supposes it doesn’t matter much which one it is.  “Here’s some of your snacks… Dunno why your dad doesn’t trust me to feed you; it’s not like I lived off instant noodles for an entire week once just to see if I could, or anything; that’d be _irresponsible_.  Here’s your lion!  Your dad ever tell you we had a friend who was a lion?  Sort of.  It’s complicated.  Okay, here’s the farm.”

Roy wasn’t exactly anticipating a leasing certificate entitling Nate Elric to a sizable tract of arable land, but he hadn’t realized that the phrase referred to, as it turns out, a bag full of several dozen playset pieces.

Nate reaches out and latches onto Ed’s right hand again.  “Play farm?”

“’Course you can, kiddo,” Ed says.

Nate tugs on the fingers.  “ _You_.”

“You want me to play with you?” Ed asks.  “Well—sure, of course, but—just let me get a cup of tea or something for Roy first, okay?  We owe him one for driving us here, y’know.”

“That’s really all right,” Roy says.  “I’d hate to put you to any trouble, a—”

“It’s not,” Ed says, levering himself up to his feet again.  He has to tug meaningfully a few times before Nate concedes to release his hand.  “Gotta get a snack going for him anyway, so it’ll time out just fine.”

Nate gazes up at both of them, eyes wide, and the corners of his mouth turn down.  “Farm?”

Roy… is doomed.  It’s been a long time coming, obviously, but—

“I’ll play,” he says.  “Is that all right?”

Nate eyes him for a second as he eases himself down to the floor and tries to fold his disagreeable knees.  The verdict, after a long moment of thought, is: “Okay.”

“Perfect,” Ed says, and the grin he unleashes should be outlawed in every civilized country.  Roy supposes that one of the few privileges of being military is the license to carry one’s weapons openly, but this specific instance simply isn’t fair.  “Just make sure he doesn’t try to eat any of ’em.  You go easy on Roy, okay?”

Presumably, the first sentence is directed at Roy himself, and the second is meant for Nate, but Roy thinks he should probably take both to heart.  The easiest thing for him would be to invent a reason, stand up, and walk out the door again before this goes any further, and he slips any deeper, and the armory in Ed’s every smile cuts him to ribbons.

He’s never been especially good at doing the easiest thing.  Or the wisest one.

Within the next few minutes, Roy makes two primary discoveries: firstly, that sitting on the floor is much better left to young people with flexible joints; secondly, that the rules of Farm appear to involve creating the most geometrically perfect fenced-in pen possible, and then piling every single animal figure inside of it, most of them stacked on top of each other.  Nate is very concerned that most of the animals get separated into distinct categories—all of the sheep together; all of the cows; all of the pigs; all of the tiny yellow chickens.  Roy, suffused with an extremely strange sort of earnest bafflement at the whole experience as he tries to determine how best to sustain a dialogue with this particular conversational partner, tries to make sure to name all of the animals as he asks Nate where they should be placed.  If he’d known this was going to happen, he would have done some research.  As it is…

Well, as it is, he’s doing the best he can, bolstered by the audacity to hope that at least he won’t make things any worse.

He refuses to tense up when he hears the footsteps behind him; he won’t give it that much power.  Not here; not now; not when Ed stands to lose almost as much if he crumbles.

“Got your tea,” Ed says.  “You never said what kind you wanted, so I figured I’d surprise you.  It’s one of the ones Al sent from Xing that he said you’re not supposed to put sugar in, which also saved me having to ask you how you take it.”

Roy is not going to think about that last turn of phrase.  He is not.  At all.  He will not torment himself; he will not debase his witty, highly-touted, dignified little brain with—

…damn it.

“Thank you,” Roy says, focusing on the task at hand so that he doesn’t destroy the entire barnyard as he tries to balance the last cow on top of two of its predecessors.  “I’m sorry, let me just—”

“No, no,” Ed says, and Roy can hear the grin, and _that_ makes him tense, and for a long moment he thinks all of the ambient agrarian wildlife is doomed.  “I’m enjoyin’ this.  Take your time.”

“You would,” Roy says in an undertone, which he deliberately keeps just loud enough for Ed to hear.

“Das good,” Nate says solemnly as Roy ever so tentatively lays the last cow atop the tower—cower?—and slowly withdraws his hand.

“Thank you very much,” Roy says, meaning it.  Nate is the professional in this regard; a compliment from the master is high praise indeed.  Speaking of high things—or not quite so much—he looks up at Ed, who raises both eyebrows, smiles, and offers him a mug.  “Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” Ed says.  “Don’t suppose I can convince you to stick around and get good at blocks while I make dinner.”

Oh, Lord.  Oh, _Lord_.

Here he stands on the precipice, knowing with every worthwhile fiber of his brain and being that the only rational course of action is a polite refusal and a swift escape.  He can’t afford to pretend.  He can’t afford to _care_ ; he can’t afford to be here, too-close, starting to find it comfortable.  That’s not fair to either of them—Ed makes allowances; Roy makes assumptions; both of them will end up burned.  He’s done far too fucking much of that over the years.

And yet—

He already knows he’s weak.  How much worse can it be to embrace it than it was to admit it?

“Well,” he says, feigning contemplation.  “That depends.  What are you making?”

  


* * *

  


Ed makes spaghetti, which is apparently Nate’s favorite.  Roy doesn’t blame him.  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Ed can cook, and cook _well_ —there’s a lot of chemistry in it.  For all of Major Elric’s numerous creative interpretations of every single rule and policy he could twist around a metal finger over the years, Ed wouldn’t be the alchemist he is if he couldn’t combine precise quantities of distinct items, add a bit of flair and a touch of talent, and turn them into something new.

He also makes garlic bread, the little bastard.  And people accuse _Roy_ of not playing fair.

Roy is honestly not sure how the time slips away so quickly after that—they both pitch in to play another round of Farm, and then Ed spirits Nate off down the hall to give him a bath, and Roy cleans up all of the little tiny pieces and packs them back into their bag.  He clearly, obviously, categorically does not sit cross-legged on the floor, body leaned slightly towards the hall, straining to hear as Ed reads several insipid board books to his nephew in a voice so soft that it sounds mesmerizing and unimaginable in equal measure.  It doesn’t even matter that half of what Ed’s reading are bad rhymes to do with colors and numbers; Roy would listen to the phonebook when he talks like that.  Hell, Roy would listen to him read the phonebook anyway; it could do with a few more four-letter words.

He has to scramble up and hastily assume an artful sprawl on the couch when Ed finishes the last book and starts promising that there aren’t any monsters under the bed—after which some shuffling ensues, but the couch is too far from the hall to make any distinctions more specific than that.  If Roy is at liberty to say so himself, he does a particularly excellent job of making it look like he’s been reading his report the entire time that Ed’s been busy.

The report _is_ important, though, and engrossing enough that he falls deeper into it than he intends to—which is a good sign for his career, presumably; and bad for just about everything else, since distraction makes him a little bit extra stupid.

Stupid enough, for instance, to blurt out things he shouldn’t notice, let alone comment upon, when Ed collapses on the couch beside him, such as:

“You smell like—ozone.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, as though it isn’t strange that Roy should recognize the smell of him well enough to know what’s abnormal.  “He’s the kid of an alchemist and an engineer; he wasn’t gonna take ‘I checked the closet for monsters yesterday, and there weren’t any’ for an answer.  Had to do a real thorough examination of the room where he could see it.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” Roy asks, which makes him fear very much that stupid, thoughtless things emerge from his heedless mouth in threes.

Ed gestures idly.  “Your ass is on it.”

“Oh,” Roy says.  “Would you like me to move?”

Threes it is.

Ed laughs, none too derisively.  Either there are deities somewhere which have taken mercy on Roy, or half a day with an unexpected two-year-old has taken a toll on the indefatigable Edward Elric.  “What?  No.  You’re fine.  Thanks for all your help today and shit.”

“You’re welcome,” Roy says, “and shit.”

Ed laughs again, brighter and louder and sweeter still, and Roy should leave.  Roy should really, really get up and go.

Ed’s body shifts; he stretches his left arm, folds his elbow up onto the back of the couch—he’s sitting so much closer than he needs to for a conversation.  For _just_ a conversation.  Close enough to…

Close enough to ruin them both.  Isn’t that right?

“I mean it,” Ed says.  His eyelashes dip and rise—is that slower than normal?  Perhaps it’s a positive reflection on Roy’s obsession that he has not, in fact, memorized the ordinary rhythm of Ed’s blinking.  “I really appreciate it.  And don’t give me any bullshit about how you were just doing what anybody would’ve done, because this is way above and beyond the call of… I dunno, coworkerly duty or whatever.  And it’s really cool of you.  So thanks.”

Roy has taught Ed a lot of things over the years—how to lie, how to cheat, how to read people.  Roy’s the one who taught him how to hide how much he knows.  That’s downright poetic right now.

“Besides,” Ed says, and his lashes dip low, and Roy’s heart has suffered worse than this—but not by much, and not too often.  “I don’t figure that’s a coincidence.  I don’t think either of us really believes in coincidences.”

Roy’s throat feels remarkably dry, but swallowing laboredly would imply a confession that he simply can’t afford.  “I… suppose not.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, and the almost-musical lilt of his voice verges on siren song; Roy’s body tilts towards him even though the rest of him _knows_ — “And I figure—y’know.  Extraordinary actions ought to get an extraordinary reward.”  His eyes flick down and fix on Roy’s mouth, and oh, _God_ , that is unequivocal; that is damning and dooming, and they can’t go back from here.  “That’s just equivalent exch—”

The phone in the kitchen rings, so shrilly that they both startle hard.

Ed rockets up from his seat instantly; what seems like far too few strides for the distance carries him into the kitchen, and the infernal ringing stops—

“Elric resi—hey!  I was hoping you’d call.”  A brief pause, then— “Nah, he’s in bed.  It said in your instructions that he needed to be by eight thirty latest, so…” He snorts.  Precious.  “Well, not when they’re _stupid_ instructions, but this is your kid, Al, of course I’m gonna… Oh, wait, how’s your guy?  Your patient?”  Another moment of silence, followed by: “Good.  I mean, I assumed that, ’cause you two are the best of the best, but—still.  Good.”  A pause.  “No, no, he was great.  Amazing, honestly.  You got a little charm machine on your hands, though; he got Roy to play Farm with him _twice_.”  A pause.  “Yeah, he’s right here—I can put him on if you don’t believe m—o… kay.  Yeah.”  A pause yet again, slightly longer than the prior ones.  “Uh… what the hell is that supposed to mean?  Is that—tell your wife to stop laughing at me for whatever I just did, or I’m never gonna talk to her again.  Or you.  You’ll have to communicate with me through Nate, and he’s probably not gonna do complex sentences for, what—two years?  Three?”  Another moment, and then Roy can hear the smirk in his voice.  “Good.  Okay.”  It softens into a regular smile—why can Roy _hear_ that?  Just how much attention has he been paying as he’s been trying to keep his eyes lowered and his hands to himself?  “Yeah.  I’ll tell him.  You guys take care, okay?  I’ll talk to you soon.  Yeah.  Love you.  ’Bye.”

This is Roy’s last chance—one he doesn’t deserve; one he never should have been granted.  Life doesn’t hand out a whole lot for free.  He’s an idiot, yes, but he’s not too stupid to notice when he’s this damn lucky.

He stands up from the couch and tucks the folder of reports beneath his arm, slipping his free hand into his pocket.  Unassuming and unimposing, but clearly poised to make an exit.  Ed has made his peace with social cues like this over the years, whether or not ‘a statistically significant number of them are bullshit’—so he won’t argue.  He won’t fight it.  They can both make it out of this unscathed.

That’s an enormous damn victory.  Why does the back of Roy’s mouth taste so bitter?

Perhaps it was something in the pasta sauce.

Ed starts to step through the kitchen doorway and then pauses with his right foot raised to cross the threshold—he hesitates, lowers it, works his jaw, raises an eyebrow, folds his arms, and leans against the doorframe, faux-casual in every line.

Roy taught him that, too.

“Forgive me,” Roy says, and he means it.  For this; and for what didn’t happen—but could have, might have, will haunt him every sleepless night from now on, and ghost behind him in the corridors, and whisper at the edges of his dreams.  “It’s getting a bit late—I didn’t want to…”  _Tempt either of us.  Give myself another opportunity to tear someone I care about to shreds._

“No worries,” Ed says.  “Really, though, thanks for your help.  I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t,” Roy says.  “You repaid me with excellent food.  That’s equivalent by any metric I’ve ever seen.”

“All right,” Ed says, and the twist to his mouth’s impregnable.  Can Roy take credit—blame, more likely—for that one, too?  “Then we’re square.”

“Perfect,” Roy says.  He tries to make turning to retrieve his jacket and his coat and his boots look unbothered.  If they’re both going to fake it like this, the least he can do is fake it _well_.  That’s just common courtesy, and Ed is anything but common.  “Please do feel free to call if you need any help this weekend.  My understanding is that even angelic children like your nephew can be a bit of a handful at this age.”

“What,” Ed says.  “Did _Elysia_ throw fits?  Even just saying that is some kinda blasphemy, isn’t it?”

“I’ve already said too much,” Roy says, flashing him a grin that feels almost ordinary.  “I’d better see myself out before I implicate you.”

“Jeez,” Ed says.  “Guess you’d better.”

Roy hardly breathes until he’s out on the sidewalk.  That was far, far, _far_ too close.  He’s not better than this—far from it.  But he has to be stronger.  He _has_ to; and for Ed, he suspects he can.

  


* * *

  


“Oh, boy,” Maes says, a dozen times too loud and a _thousand_ times too cheerfully, as Roy drops into the charming little café chair across from him.  “You look like crap.”

“You kiss your daughter with that mouth?” Roy asks.

“Get bent,” Maes says, somehow turning the beaming grin up several watts.  “Were you doing something fun?  Please tell me it was something fun.  I don’t think you’ve done something fun in a year and a half, and that was bowling, and I had to blackmail you to make you come.”

“So you admit it was blackmail,” Roy says.  “I’ll see you in court.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” Maes says, “which means it wasn’t fun, which makes me very sad, which will make me a very poor defendant.”  The grin’s gone.  Roy misses it.  “What’s up?”

“It’s nothing tragic,” Roy says.  “Unless you consider it as a symptom of my life as a whole, which… never mind; I suppose it is tragic.  A bit.  Moderately.”

“Moderately tragic,” Maes says, leaning forward and tapping his fingertips on the table.  “That narrows it down.”

Roy leans back in his chair, which doesn’t count as escape but feels like it might help a little.  “Can I please have some coffee before the interrogation?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Maes says, “yes.  I was thinking about ordering for you, but given that you’re almost never late—”

“Rub it in,” Roy says, getting up.  “Next time I beat you here, it’s on you.”

“I should hope you don’t beat me anywhere,” Maes says.  “Is that how you treat all your friends?  No wonder your life is moderately tragic.”

Roy gives him a look.

He grins.

  


* * *

  


“How is everyone?” Maes asks when they’ve scarfed enough breakfast that they won’t be brokenhearted when their outdoor table swiftly leaves it cold.  “I keep meaning to stop by, but it’s just… you know how it is.”

“Intimately,” Roy says.  He cannot mash at his food without giving himself away, but a small frown down at a stubborn piece of bacon that refuses to be cut by the edge of a fork is a plausible reason to be looking at his plate instead of directly at a human lie detector.  “Riza set another record in the firing range, so I made her a certificate, so she told me to get back to work.”  He lets the corner of his mouth twitch towards a scowl as the bacon continues to put up a fight.  “Ed’s babysitting his nephew this weekend.  I helped him out last night as a clever ploy to get out of the rest of the afternoon in the office.  Very nice kid.”

Silence.

Shit.

When he dares to glance up, trying for arch bemusement, Maes already has the most terrible of all the gleams in his eye.

“I can’t believe it,” he says.

“Yes, you can,” Roy says.  “Now that we have the platitudes out of the way, can we move on to the humiliation and get it over with?”

“I’m not going to humiliate you,” Maes says.  “I’m _delighted_.  I just—it’s so—there’s something so circular about it.  You should appreciate that—all of you alchemists and your little circles everywhere.  I just never even would have dared to hope that a brush with domesticity and a darling toddler dropping into the picture would be what pushed you over the edge.”

Roy eyes him.  That was not nearly enough abuse, and he’d like to rip the bandages off as soon as humanly possible so that he can get back to licking the wounds beneath them in peace.

“Can I say it?” Maes asks, and when the buoyant joy suffuses his voice like that, Roy can’t refuse him a damn thing.

“Go ahead,” Roy says.

“You’re a real friend,” Maes says.

“Thank you,” Roy says, warily.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Maes says.  “That was a reaction.  What I was going to say is—”  Roy raises an eyebrow, and Maes beams at him.  “I _told_ you so.”

“No, you didn’t,” Roy says.  “You told me that my being attracted to men was a phase, and I’d get over it soon and want to settle down with an angel-wife and a sproglet.”

“Did I say that?” Maes asks.

“Yes,” Roy says.

“Was I sober?” Maes asks.

“I hope so,” Roy says, “given that you were driving at the time.”

“Oh,” Maes says.  “Goodness.  Well—the point is, I knew you’d find love someday.  I _knew_ it.  Isn’t it grand?”

No sense and no point mentioning that it’s not his first encounter with this particular beast, and he’s got the scars to prove it.

“So far,” Roy says, “it’s a pile of shit.”

“You don’t mean that,” Maes says.

Roy gives up on the bacon for good, sits back, and looks at him.

“Yes,” he says.  “I do.”

“Then you’re doing something wrong,” Maes says.

“I’m what’s wrong,” Roy says.  “It’s the only variable that’s consistent when all of the other components of the equations—”

“How dare you try to distract me with your dorky science metaphors,” Maes says.  “Frankly, I’m insulted that you thought that would work for a second.”

Roy massages his temples.  “I wasn’t—”

“You do it without even noticing,” Maes says.  “It’s adorable right up until you try it on me.”

“I was contextualizing,” Roy says.

“No,” Maes says, “you were evading.  There’s a difference.”

“If you know everything,” Roy says, “how come you haven’t fixed me yet?”

“I don’t,” Maes says.  “But I do know a few things, and one of them is that you’re looking at it backwards.  It’s not about fixing.  It’s about finding someone who fits with you exactly the way you already are.”

“Oh, silly me,” Roy says.  “Shall I just pick at random, then, from the mob at my door of people begging for a few minutes alone with a nightmare-ridden, government-sanctioned ex-murderer?  Or maybe I should start a raffle.”

Maes smiles slightly.  That’s when you really have to worry—when he goes softly concerned and a little bit wry.

“Ed’s seen the worst of you,” Maes says.  “And he’s still here.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Roy says.  “And even if—I’m not going to do that to him.  He deserves better.  He deserves the _best_.  And he’s the only one who doesn’t realize that he could have anyone he wanted.”

“He doesn’t, though,” Maes says.  “Have someone he wanted.  He doesn’t have anyone at all.  Why do you think that is?”

Roy shrugs halfheartedly.  He has a thousand theories, none of which need to be dredged up over the end of an otherwise pleasant breakfast.  “I don’t think he even notices the way that people look at him.”

“Because he’s a sweet, vulnerable, naïve young man blissfully unaware of the fact that consenting adults sometimes size each other up like an offering in a butcher shop window?” Maes asks brightly.  “Or because he’s too preoccupied looking at someone in particular?”

“Those aren’t the only two options,” Roy says.  “And it—no.  It’d be a disaster.  That _is_ the only option.”

Maes props an elbow up on the table and rests his chin on his hand.  “Some disasters are beautiful, Roy.”

“Some are,” Roy says.  “And the people that get caught in the beautiful ones end up just as dead.”

Maes sits back.  “All right,” he says.  “But _next_ time I say I told you so—” He registers Roy’s glare and rolls his eyes.  “Fine.  Let’s just… never speak of it again?  Is that what you’re going for?”

“Something like that,” Roy says.  He’d balled his napkin up in both hands without noticing; he tries to smooth it subtly before he sets it on his plate, so that Maes won’t understand just how close that felt to having a knife blade at his throat.  “Oh, before I forget—” He reaches into the bag of reports he brought in case Maes was running late and withdraws his other prize.  “Elysia mentioned something about wanting to be a teacher the other day, so I—”

“Bought her a book,” Maes says, taking it and scanning the cover.  “Like you have every single other time she’s ever expressed interest in any sort of a hobby or career path.”  He glances up, over the top rim of his glasses, and smiles like a satisfied cat.  “With the notable and solitary exception of alchemy.”

Roy sets his jaw.

“Oh, boy,” Maes says.  “That’s my favorite expression—that’s _I hate it when other people are just as smart as I am_.  Thank you, by the way.”  He offers it back across the table, pushing it a little when Roy doesn’t lift both hands to take it.  “Walk back with me and give it to her yourself.  It’s not that far, and she and Gracia would both love to see you.  It’ll only pry you away from your beloved paperwork for an hour or two, and you’ll get to interact with a few other human beings who don’t have the slightest interest in subverting your political influence, which might—unthinkable, I know—be good for you.  Humor me.”

Roy stifles the sigh.  It’s a waste of energy, it won’t change anything, and Maes has heard them all before.

He takes the book.  “Is there pie in my future?”

“Very likely,” Maes says.  “Or very… _pie_ -kely.”

“I’m leaving,” Roy says, getting up to prove it.

Maes scrambles out of his seat to catch up, aided by the fact that Roy has to pause and dig for his wallet so that he can leave a tip.  “Then I’m leaving with you.  Come on, it’ll only be a minute—we can cut through the park.  How much do you _really_ want to spend your Saturday morning buried in the same reports as yesterday?”

“I thought that was what Saturday mornings were for,” Roy says, tucking the bills under the edge of his empty coffee mug.

Maes grabs Roy’s elbow and hooks it with his own before Roy can escape.  “You.  Pie.  Imminently.”

  


* * *

  


Roy has been very, very lucky many times in his life.  More often than they should have, perhaps, chance and coincidence together have taken his side and dragged him through circumstances that he shouldn’t have survived.  The man who has finally released his elbow—but not given up on extolling the virtues of a certain perfect angel-daughter’s recent expedition into the art of the short story, which Roy will now also have to find a book on—has borne witness to a number of them.

This time, Maes is about to bear witness to luck kicking Roy in the chest and laughing when he collapses to the ground wheezing.

It takes Maes a few seconds longer than it took Roy, which Roy is going to attribute to his companion’s lifelong use of glasses, rather than to any remote possibility that he is highly attuned to and inordinately observant of things that are important to him.

All the same, momentarily, Maes squints.  “Is that—”

“Yes,” Roy says.

Ed is helping Nate climb, somewhat unsteadily, up a rope ladder to the upper level of the playground.  When Nate finds his feet on the platform, he toddles over towards the slide, and Ed darts around to the bottom of it and holds both arms out, beckoning.  They’re just too far to hear him—and yet, of course, not nearly far enough.  He’s wearing tight black jeans, a hooded black jacket, and staggeringly gaudy boots, and Roy wants to taste every last damn inch of him.

Courteously, Roy supposes, Maes waits until Nate has braved the length of the slide and landed in Ed’s waiting arms, then been scooped up and raised jubilantly over Ed’s head, then lowered carefully to the ground again.  Ed crouches down, and by his expression alone—although the way Nate peers around the playground thoughtfully doesn’t hurt—Roy can tell that he’s asking what Nate wants to do next.

“Ed!” Maes calls as the two-year-old contemplates the decision with appropriate solemnity.  “Fancy meeting you here!”

“If you planned this,” Roy says out of the corner of his mouth as he puts on the easiest smile he owns, “I am going to flay you alive with a fish knife.”

“You don’t own a fish knife,” Maes says.  “I bought you all of the utensils in your kitchen, and as long as they’re serviceable, you’re never going to go out and buy any more.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re fundamentally evil,” Roy says, “or if you’re just lucky and mean.”

Maes beams at him.  “Can’t it be both?”

Either way, this timed out beautifully for Maes Hughes: in the next instant, they step into Ed’s earshot, so Roy can’t make any threats of violence without worrying that Alphonse Elric’s two-year-old might pick them up and parrot them at home.

Maes goes in for a hug anyway, the bastard.  True to form, Ed doesn’t hug casually—he always wraps his arms tight and closes his eyes and smiles slightly when he does it.

Not that Roy’s been paying attention, of course.

“Hey, Colonel,” Ed says.  “Been too long.  How are you?”

“Just had a bracing breakfast with my long-suffering best friend,” Maes says, “so—excellent.  Who’s this strapping young gentleman?”

Ed crouches down to Nate’s level again.  Roy needs to count his blessings here: first and foremost, that they’re facing Ed right now, so he can’t see what devastatingly magnificent things the position does to that already incomparable ass.

“Nate,” Ed says, “this is Mr. Hughes.  He’s been a friend of mine and your dad’s for a real long time.”

Maes drops to one knee and offers Nate his right hand.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Tentatively, Nate puts his hand in Maes’s and mumbles something that sounds like an approximation of a reply.

“Good morning, Nate,” Roy says when the child’s focus shifts away from Maes’s face, trying to use a quiet voice—the park is probably overstimulating enough on its own, and Nate’s had to meet so many new people on top of traveling and being pried out of his element that it must be very difficult.

Nate smiles up at him a little, though, and curls his hand into the leg of Ed’s jeans.  The free one lifts to wave.  “Hi, Mr. Roy.”

Shit.  Hell.  Damn.  He doesn’t even _like_ kids—they’re fine, of course, but he’s never felt any sort of evolutionary imperative; he’s protective of everyone he cares for, but not towards miniature human monsters in particular.

Or at least not until now.

“How old are you, Nate?” Maes asks.

Nate blinks at him.  “’M two,” he says.  “How old’re _you_?”

Roy can definitely see Alphonse in him now.

Maes laughs and then makes a show of trying to count on his fingers for a few moments before giving up.  “It’s a pretty big number,” he says.  “How high can you count?”

Nate stands up a little straighter, raising his chin.  “Twenny.”

Ed’s grinning fit to break his face, which would be a tragedy of much more than moderate proportions.  “Oh, yeah?  That’s pretty amazing, y’know.  Who taught you how to count that high?”

“Mama,” Nate says.

“I figured,” Ed says.  “Your mom is real smart.  I mean, so’s your dad, but he’s probably only going to teach you numbers that you need to do arguably dangerous chemistry.”

“Isn’t that your job?” Roy asks.

Ed pauses, gazing up at him instinctively as he thinks it over, and that…

Shit, hell, damn all over again.

“Good point,” he says.  “I never had any uncles, but I think they’re _supposed_ to show you all the questionable stuff.”  He ruffles Nate’s hair.  “Anyway.  What do you want to do next, kiddo?”

Nate looks around again, then frees his hand from his grip on Ed in order to point.  “Wanna swings.”

“Good choice,” Ed says, standing and reaching down to hold his hand.

“Darn right it is,” Maes says, jumping up.  “I want to go on the swings, too.”

“I am _not_ pushing you,” Roy says.

The smirk Maes gives him terrifies him beyond measure.  “Yes, you are.”

He’s right.  He knows too much.  Roy’s two choices are obedience or killing him in cold blood.

“I hate you,” Roy says.

“Oh, come on,” Maes says, elbowing him as they trail Ed and Nate towards the swingset.  “What’s a little coercion between friends?”

“Still coercion,” Roy says.

“But coercion born of love,” Maes says.

“You have a bizarre little worldview,” Roy says.

“It’s a bizarre little world,” Maes says, and then he hops onto the first regular swing next to the toddler-sized one that Ed’s helping Nate up into.  Nate’s little red sneakers almost get stuck in the leg holes, but then he wriggles his way through.

Unsurprisingly—he _is_ an Elric, after all—Nate puts up with about ninety seconds of serene swinging before he cranes his neck back to look at Ed and says, “ _Fast_.”

“You sure?” Ed asks.

“Yeah!” Nate says, and Ed’s grinning, and Roy may or may not semi-accidentally shove Maes almost hard enough to knock him off the swing.  Somehow all of this is Maes’s fault anyway.  Roy’s sure of it; just because he hasn’t found evidence yet doesn’t make it any less true.

Maes glares at him for half a second before turning a beaming grin on the bane of Roy’s existence.  Well—the other bane.  He has several now.  Moderately tragic.

“You want to have kids, Ed?” Maes asks, because there is not a modicum of mercy in him.

“Nah,” Ed says.  Blessedly, he seems distracted enough by the effort of fulfilling Nate’s thrill-seeking aspirations without endangering him that he hasn’t noticed the silent conversation taking place beside him.  “I love ’em, don’t get me wrong, but—it’s a lot easier to borrow one who’s great and then give him back later.  The idea of being responsible for a little tiny person and trying to make sure they grow up right—or at least as right as you can, I guess—scares the heck out of me.  And that’s not even touching all the little day-to-day stuff you gotta be careful about every single time.  I have enough trouble taking care of _me_ , you know?”

Roy winces.

“I hear you,” Maes says.  “And I’d be lying if I said it was easy—or if I said it wasn’t terrifying.  I’m in the habit of not lying to people unless they really deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Roy says.

“You bet,” Maes says.  “Anyway—that’s exactly what nephews are for.  Just figured it was worth asking!  You’re a natural, you know.”

“That’s always what people say when I make it up as I go along,” Ed says, “and just happen to get real lucky.”

Maes laughs, kicking both feet in the air.  “Isn’t that what ‘natural’ means?”

“Maybe,” Ed says.  “I’m not a linguist.”

“No?” Maes says.  “I always imagined you’re probably very good with your mouth.”

Roy would like the record to show that it’s not even remotely his fault that, this time, he really does shove Maes right off the swing.

That’s what the tanbark is there for, isn’t it?

  


* * *

  


“Hi, Uncle Roy!” Elysia says.  “Dad, why are you covered in wood chips?”

“Because my love and loyalty are meaningless and have been heinously betrayed,” Maes says.

Elysia stares up at him, half-poised to hug Roy on his way in.  “What?”

“I slipped,” Maes says.  “We were cutting through the playground to make it back to my beautiful family faster.”  Gracia steps into the doorway, looking eminently amused.  “Oh, boy,” Maes says.  “I didn’t know we had a resident runway model around here.  What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?”

Gracia rolls her eyes, but the grin gives her away.  “I thought you just had breakfast.  How can you already be negotiating for extra pie?”

“Your pie is better than their breakfast,” Maes says.  “Your pie is better than absolution.”

“No offense, my dear,” Roy says to the empieress, “but I have to object to that one.”

“Well, we should be scientific,” Elysia says.  “When was the last time you tasted absolution?”

Just for that, Roy’s going to buy her a book on the scientific method.  And put it into one of those puzzle boxes where there’s a trick to opening it.

“I don’t think any of the answers I’m thinking of are appropriate to give in this company,” Roy says.

“Oh, dear,” Maes says, linking elbows with him before he can run again and starting to drag him towards the kitchen.  “You really _do_ need to get some—” He darts a glance at the ten-year-old angel-child with the incredibly absorptive brain.  “…where.  With him.  It’s starting to go to your head.”

Elysia slips her arm through Roy’s free one and contributes to the dragging, which is even less fair, given that he can’t resist without being afraid of hurting her.  “With who?”

“Ed,” Maes says.  “Roy’s got a _huge_ crush.”

Roy forgets to concentrate on play-fighting the kitchen-ward hauling and stops in his tracks.  “You—”

“It’s fine!” Maes says, as if any of this has ever been in the same postal code as fine, let alone acquainted— “They can keep a secret.”

Gracia can.  She was the only one who knew that this man was alive for months on end, and she never gave any of them a whisper.  That was the price, and she paid it in full so that the rest of them could reap the rewards.

Roy knows what they almost lost.  He doesn’t begrudge her a single instant of the silence.

But—

But _still_.

“Our Ed?” Gracia asks, as if statistical probability could stand to support two men named Edward in Central City who could wrangle their way into Roy’s affections entirely on accident and set up shop inside his head.  As if any city could—as if any city in the country has enough buildings they could obliterate between the two of them without leveling the skyline.  “You know, that’s…” She settles at the table, crosses her legs, and smiles.  “That’s nice.”

Roy would have preferred her telling him that he’s an irredeemable lech, honestly.

Maes pulls him the rest of the way over to another of the chairs and plunks him down into it, clapping his shoulder as he sits.  “See?  It’s nice.  Now they can help me try to set you up.  Or just engineer the sort of series of hilarious coincidences that makes one of you trip over a dog leash, and you fall into each other’s arms.”

“Huh,” Elysia says.  “Well… Ed _is_ pretty hot.”

Roy blinks at her.  Then he blinks at Maes.

“Your daughter has good taste in men,” he says.

Gracia grins.  “It’s genetic.”

Maes looks like someone just handed him a lollipop the size of his head in his all-time favorite flavor.

Roy clears his throat.  “If we’re quite done discussing the finer details of my nonexistent love life—”

Maes leans forward, eyes bright.  “Well, actual—”

Roy covers Maes’s mouth with one hand and reaches into his bag with the other.  “Allow me to rephrase that— _now_ that we’re quite done discussing the details of my nonexistent love life… Elysia, this is for you.”

Her eyes light up as she scans the cover, and she takes it immediately.  “Thank you!”

Maes finally wriggles free of Roy’s grip.  “At this rate, we’re going to have to buy more bookshelves.”

“There are worse things,” Gracia says.

“Sensible woman you married,” Roy says.

Maes beams again.  “Doesn’t that make me sensible by extension?”

“Not necessarily,” Roy says.

“The consummate politician,” Maes says.

“That’s the idea,” Roy says.

Maes grins with all the bright fervor of a particularly malevolent lighthouse beam again.  “Speaking of consummating—”

“Well, that’s all from me,” Roy says, standing up from the table.  “I’ll just be going, rapidly, before you incriminate yourself in front of your own offspring.  Hope you enjoy the book, sweetheart.”

Typically—which is a good sign for her, both as far as her emerging unscathed from her own childhood and as far as taking after her mother—Elysia looks utterly unperturbed.  “Thanks, Uncle Roy!”

“Thank you, Roy,” Gracia says.  “Nice to see you.”

“You, too,” Roy says, making a beeline for the exit.

“I’m going to set you up when you least expect it!” Maes calls after him as he reaches the door.

“I always expect it,” Roy says.  “That’s why I’m still alive.”

“But if you’re alone,” Maes says as he opens it, “are you _really_ living?”

“Goodbye,” Roy says, and manages not to slam the door behind him—not even a little bit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~ ~~schmoop~~ fin~

It’s not entirely Maes’s fault, since Roy—deliberately, of course—didn’t give him all of the relevant information.

The relevant information in question is the part that’s torturing him the most—thumbscrews and fingernail peeling on the rack, figuratively speaking; his brain can be a colorful place.

Roy wouldn’t have made it this far or lasted this long or survived half of what he ducked and weaved his way through if he wasn’t a career over-analyzer, but some days… some hours, some moments, he wishes he could silence the whispers of worst-case scenarios and believe in the possibility of good.  That’s what Maes does, albeit much more cautiously than he lets on.  So far it’s worked for him all right.

During that entire encounter at the park, Ed made no indication that he even remembers what happened—or, really, what almost happened—last night.  The fact that Maes was present for the duration of the conversation that they had today is a consideration, certainly, but even before Roy left yesterday, he and Ed were both staunchly pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had even taken place.  Is that because Ed saw Roy’s instincts guiding him and followed suit to try to quell any awkwardness?  Or is it because he realized that he’d made a terrible mistake, and the best course of action was to try to forget it as swiftly as possible?

Today is another story: has Ed said nothing because there’s nothing to say?  Or is it because it occurred to him, however belatedly, that Roy is an avalanche and a forest fire and a tsunami, simultaneous but independent; and none of them will overlap enough to temper one another?  Did he realize that Roy is a revolver loaded with an unknown quantity of bullets, and last night Ed spun the barrel and won?  He’s a brilliant human being; he has to know the odds; he has to understand.

The first question is whether he’s avoiding the topic because it doesn’t matter to him, or because he wants Roy to _think_ it doesn’t.  The follow-up question is whether he thinks it doesn’t matter to _Roy_ —whether that’s motivating him; or whether it’s his own better judgment that’s stopping his much-too-tempting mouth—

Does it make any difference?  What’s done is done, and what’s lost is lost, and if Ed fired the pistol once, and they both emerged alive, Roy Mustang should be on his knees enumerating all his blessings.

It’s better not to know.

It’s better not to ask.

Particularly if, as one cuts back through the park, one sees the object of one’s misplaced and undesired affections lying in the grass, gazing up at the sky with said object’s nephew also sprawled on his back and staring skyward.

Roy has never claimed not to be a bit stupid.

He changes his course to veer off the path and out across the lawn.

The bright blonde hair is so striking against the emerald green of the grass that it very nearly leaves him breathless—which is either an extremely bad sign for his health or a worse one for his dignity.  At this point, he’s not sure which one he’d prefer.  At least if he dies young and moderately tragic and _almost_ handsome enough to get everything he wants and knows he shouldn’t have—

As he approaches, the voices fade in.  It doesn’t count as eavesdropping when you enter earshot visibly—or he believes that’s the rule; he’s not too accustomed to doing it this way.

Ed is pointing upward again.  “What does that one look like?”

“Dat one?”  Nate squints, scowls, and thinks for a second, and then his face relaxes.  “S’a cat.”

“Yeah?” Ed says.  “Is that the tail, there?”

“Yeah,” Nate says.

“Cool,” Ed says.  “Guess that doesn’t skip a generation.  What about… that one?”

Roy reaches them, pauses, and realizes too late that he’s come too close.  “Ah—”

“Das Roy,” Nate says.

“You’re right,” Ed says, cupping a hand over his eyes.  “That one does look an awful lot like Roy.”

“Sorry,” Roy says.

“No need to be sorry,” Ed says.  “Just lie down instead of loomin’ like that.  We’re stimulating creativity or something.”

“I’m not sure the Elric gene needs much help with that,” Roy says.

Ed grins.  “Well, I’m sure my back needs a break after trying to do stuff at kid level all day, so I figured we might as well give it a shot.”

Nate pulls on Ed’s sleeve and then points up.  “Das a camel.”

“Hey, you’re right,” Ed says.  “You know I rode on a camel once?”

Nate rolls onto his side to stare better.  “A real camel?”

“Sure felt real,” Ed says.  “And it was out in the desert, so…”

“Wow,” Nate says.  “A _camel_.”

“Yeah,” Ed says.  “Hey, you wanna go to the zoo tomorrow?  They’ve got a cool one here.”

“Yeah!” Nate says.

“Good thing we’re findin’ animals in clouds, then,” Ed says.  “It’s good practice.”  He raises an arm again.  “What’s that one look like?”

“A cloud,” Roy says— _quietly_ ; he’s not a total reprobate.

Ed elbows him, with the right arm, which he supposes he deserves.  “Wasn’t asking you.”

“I thought it was a general question,” Roy says.

“ _Nate_ ,” Ed says, as distinctly as humanly possible.  “What’s that one look like to you?”

Nate stares upward seriously for a long few moments and then says, “Bear.”

“What kind?” Ed asks.

“Big one,” Nate says.

“Sounds good,” Ed says.

Roy thinks of bears, and then of polar bears like Olivier Armstrong; and then of brown bears like Alex, who appear terrifying at first, only then to turn out to be teddies; and then of the _color_ brown, and then…

“It’s remarkable that he has dark hair,” Roy says.  “Genetically implausible, I suppose I should say, given his parents.”

“It’s not that unlikely,” Ed says.  He reaches over and ruffles the mess of brown in question.  “My mom’s hair was almost exactly this color.  Makes sense.  And I like it.”

“Me, too,” Roy says.

It’s difficult to tell if Nate dislikes his hair, or if he dislikes the way Ed’s mussing it up deliberately now.  Whatever the root cause, he scrunches up his face in a way that makes him look _very_ much like Ed did at twelve when he was about to throw a fit about budgeting, reports, newspaper libel, or all three at once.

“Why?” Nate says.

“Why do I like it?” Ed asks.  “Or why’s it brown?”

“Brown,” Nate says.

Ed sits up, so Nate does likewise, which leaves Roy and his aching old back struggling to follow suit.

“Okay,” Ed says.  He holds up both hands, extending the first finger of each.  “So when two people get together and make another person—in this case, your mom and your dad makin’ you—they combine the information that made them who they are, and it gets all mixed up, and what comes out makes you what you are.”  He bends both index fingers and hooks the knuckles together.  “With me so far?”

Nate’s nose has wrinkled so vigorously that Roy’s slightly worried for his sinuses, but he nods gamely all the same.

“Thing is,” Ed says, “which part of the mixed up stuff ends up _showing_ depends on which parts are stronger.  You get one piece from your mom and one piece from your dad for everything, right?  And sometimes the piece from your mom’s stronger, and sometimes the piece from your dad is.”

Ed leans forward.  Roy resists the urge to lean back.  This is about to get… Elricky.

“You know ‘rock, paper, scissors’?” Ed asks.  When Nate nods, holding his hand up and making a scissoring motion with his first two fingers to prove it, Ed grins.  “Great.  So if you have paper and rock—” He mimics the hand motions, curling the automail into a fist and laying his left hand over the top.  “Paper always wins, right?”  Nate nods again, watching Ed’s hands intently—which is the wisest decision, since Ed starts shifting the automail back and forth.  “But the rock’s still there—underneath.  You just can’t see it, because paper wins.  The stuff you get from you mom and your dad that make you into you are just like that.”  Ed holds both hands up separately again, index fingers extended.  “But then… here’s the thing.  Where’d your mom and your dad come from?”

Nate stares at Ed’s fingertips for a long second, frowning with concentration, before his eyes light up.  Then they narrow, and then he works his jaw, slowly, like he’s worried that _Ed_ , who rejoices in the opportunity to explain genetic inheritance as close as possible to a two-year-old’s level, will berate him if he’s wrong.

“Gramma?” he asks.

“Exactly!” Ed says, and the grin—

Roy looks intently out at the trees and the grass and the path he should have stayed on, for as long as he can stand it.

“Okay,” Ed says.  “So—what your dad’s got is this hair.”  He tugs at his bangs.  “He and I both got that from our dad.  And that one piece from our dad is stronger than the one piece we got from _our_ mom for hair.  Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, earnestly.

“But you didn’t get this,” Ed says, tugging again.

Nate starts to pout.  “But I _wanna_ ,” he says.

“That’s because of how one piece is always going to be stronger than the other,” Ed says.  “Because your _mom_ ’s hair—it looks pretty similar, because it’s real light, but it’s not quite the same.  So she’s got one piece of real light hair from _her_ mom, and one from her dad.  But your dad had two things he could’ve given you—this hair I’m wearin’, or our mom’s brown hair.”  He grins, bright and broad and devastatingly beautiful.  “You must’ve gotten hers.  And I’m sure glad you did, kiddo.”

Nate makes a face.  “You like it?”

“Love it,” Ed says.  “I don’t look like her at all, and Al’s eyes have a lot of her in ’em, but mostly we’re more like our dad.  It’s really nice to see some of her made it all this way to you.  And I know she’d love you to the moon and back if she was here.  You’d make her really happy.”  He leans over, dishevels Nate’s hair with his left hand again, and laughs, softly.  “Heck, you make _me_ really happy.”

It’s a good thing Maes isn’t here.  It’s a good thing this park isn’t especially populous this weekend.  It’s a good thing Ed only has eyes for his nephew, because if he saw the way Roy must be looking at him right now, he couldn’t _possibly_ not know.

Roy makes himself examine the grass again—and then his knees; and then his hands; and then the thick white scars across the palms of them, under which aches of a demonic caliber live and lie in wait, biding their time until he clutches something too tightly for too long.

It’s better not to reach out at all when the only possible outcome is just more pain.

  


* * *

  


“Hey,” Ed says as they start back towards where Roy parked this morning to meet up with Maes.  Evidently Ed’s lost his mind, because he has now willingly agreed to get into a car with Roy two days in a row.  Nate, perched on Ed’s shoulders, doesn’t seem too unsettled by the lapse in judgment—but then again, he’s two, and he’s preoccupied playing with Ed’s hair in a wistful sort of way.  “You want lunch?”

“Do you mean conceptually?” Roy asks.  “Or are you offering?”

“Depends on your answer,” Ed says.  “Somebody who will here go nameless is going to need some REM rest in about an hour, or there’ll be some crankiness.”

“Does it have to be REM sleep?” Roy asks.

“Not sure,” Ed says.  “Al’n Win always spell out the trigger words, but I’m willing to bet he’s smart enough that he’ll start recognizing the patterns of letters soon, so I’m trying to mix it up.”

“Staying one step ahead of the two-year-old, I see,” Roy says.

“They’re crafty,” Ed says.  “Like you.  You haven’t answered the question.”

Roy manages to swallow the truth in the nick of time—the truth being damning, of course; the truth being _This isn’t craftiness, my dear boy; this is distraction, because it’s impossible to cling to a single thought when I can see the sunlight on your hair._

“Ah,” he says.  “Foiled again.  My cunning plan to swear off midday meals forever has been exposed.  What did you have in mind?”

“Anything he’ll eat,” Ed says, jogging Nate gently.  He’s got one hand on the top of either of the little red sneakers, holding on to help maintain the balance.  “Unless you’ve got something pressing.”

Roy wishes he had something _pressing_ , in a manner of speaking.

“All yours,” he says.

Oh, hell.

  


* * *

  


Lunch is wonderful.  More than one passerby looks at them with some combination of raised eyebrows, startlement, and a slight smile, which leads Roy to believe that people are assuming that they’re a couple out with their child.

Well, Ed’s child.  Nate has the Elric eyes—shot through with a touch more olive green even than Alphonse’s are; Ed’s have always tended more to undertones in brown.  Roy can’t tell if the total strangers on the sidewalk are looking close enough to make the distinction, and as long as all of them keep their mouths shut, he won’t have to find out.

He makes an excuse about the paperwork backlog when he drops them off, as Ed’s bundling Nate back out of the car—Roy is stupid enough to plunge his hand repeatedly into an open flame, yes; but not quite stupid enough to keep doing it for several hours at a stretch.  Besides, he expects that Ed probably wants _some_ time alone with his nephew; surely that was part of the point of this whole arrangement.

It’s only when he’s parked in front of his own house and getting out of the car that he notices that Nate’s little navy blue sweater escaped notice on the dark leather of the seats and stowed away for the ride.

He stifles a sigh.  It figures, doesn’t it?  The one time he has _good_ intentions—the one time he denies himself the sweet temptation in both of their better interests—the universe forces his hand.

He collects the sweater and slings it over his arm, although there isn’t much to sling, and takes it up the walk with him.  He’ll do his damnedest to read the reports, kill a couple hours somehow, and pop back by just before dinner.  Ed will be busy with the preparations; Roy will have a perfect reason to leave so that he isn’t in the way.  He could even say he’s stopping off en route to somewhere else—that’s plausible.  He has at least two friends.  One of whom he wasn’t seen with by the recipient of the lie just a few hours earlier.

Simple.

  


* * *

  


Ed opens the door with a grin like a sunbeam.  There are just so many ways that a human being can burn.

“’Fess up,” Ed says.  “You can’t get enough of this kid either.”

“You caught me,” Roy says.  He holds up the sweater.  “This tried to make a break for freedom.”

“Ambitious,” Ed says, taking it.  “Thanks.  You wanna come in?”

Roy keeps the smile serene like ocean waves and his voice much smoother.  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly.  I’d really better—”

“Roy!” Nate says, stumbling up behind Ed and then clinging to his pants leg.  “Farm!”

“Oh, dear,” Roy says.

“Jeez,” Ed says.  “Now I’m getting jealous.  He never wants me to play it with him _that_ many times.”  His eyes narrow, but his smile quirks.  “What’s your secret?”

“Either he’s inherited his father’s prescience _very_ early,” Roy says, “and he thinks it’s delightfully ironic to make a lifelong city-dweller organize the farm, or… perhaps he just likes the way I stack cows.”

Ed presses his lips together, trying not to laugh.  Roy is trying not to kiss him.  He doesn’t know who’s struggling more.

“So many unexplored talents,” Ed says.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Roy says.  He crouches down.  “I’d love to play, but are you sure you don’t want to give your Uncle Ed a turn?”

Nate hesitates for a long second, twisting his hand tighter into Ed’s jeans—which is rather impressive, since they don’t have a whole lot of give.

“He can play, too,” Nate says at last.  He looks up at Ed, eyes wide.  “You wanna?”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Ed says, leaning down to pat his head.  “Thank you.  It’s nice of you to share.  Let me just put dinner on while you and Roy get started, and then I’ll come play with you guys, okay?”

“’Kay,” Nate says, and he pries his hand loose and holds it out to Roy.  “C’mon.”

“All right,” Roy says, offering two fingers for Nate to wrap his tiny ones around.  “Lead the way.”

The tiny animals won’t sort themselves, after all.

  


* * *

  


Roy is getting very good at this game—although he’s not entirely sure it can be called a game, if one feels particularly stringent about semantics, given that there’s no real objective, and it’s not competitive.  Perhaps ‘activity’ is a better word, but people rarely express excitement about honing their skills for an _activity_.  Why is that?  What about their culture is so determined to glorify—

Perhaps Maes is ever-so-slightly on to something about Roy being alone with his thoughts too much.

“Which one is your favorite?” he asks Nate.

“Cows,” Nate says.  “There’s lots.  An’ they’re big.”

“Have you seen a cow?” Roy asks.  “I believe I saw some near your great-grandmother’s house, the last time I was there.”

Nate pauses in livestock-stacking to nod seriously.  “A black cow.  She licked me.”  He points at his right cheek.  “Right here.”

“Goodness,” Roy says.  “Were you scared?”

Nate shakes his head vigorously, then pauses, then leans forward to try to peek into the kitchen, where Ed is muttering at a saucepan.  He sits back, pulls a face, and then whispers, “A _lil_.”

“I would have been, too,” Roy whispers back.

Nate nods again, then returns his attention to the task at hand.  “But they’re my favorite.”

Roy knows a thing or two about loving things he’s a little bit afraid of.

Nate hands him a chicken.  “What’s your favorite?”

“Animal?” Roy says.  “I… hmm.  I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”

“You have to pick one,” Nate says seriously, handing him another chicken.  “S’the rules.”

“Oh, dear,” Roy says.  “Do I get to think about it for a minute?”

Nate watches him for a second before nodding.  “Okay.”

“Do I have to pick a farm animal?” Roy asks.  “Or can it be any animal?”

“Any,” Nate says.

Roy turns the prospect over in his mind for a moment while he makes a small tower of chickens—thinking of flowing gold and bright, clever eyes and sharp reflexes and sharper teeth.

“I like cats,” he says.

“Traitor,” Ed says from behind them, but when Roy looks at him, he’s leaning against the doorframe and grinning in a way that really doesn’t deter the comparison.  “Having fun?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, which is good, because Roy thought that was aimed at him.  Not that his response would have been different, but—still.  It would have been embarrassing to upstage the two-year-old on accident.

Doing it on purpose, of course, would be another matter entirely.

“Good,” Ed says.  “Are you hungry?”

Nate’s eyes widen.  “Yeah!”

“Whoa,” Ed says.  “Okay, um—can you hold out a couple more minutes?  Dinner’s not quite ready yet, but… soon.  Is that okay?”

Nate nods and directs his attention back to the barnyard.  “Not libel to starve in s’next five minutes.”

The long pause is a bit of a relief, because it implies that Ed couldn’t make head or tail of that either, which hopefully means that neither Roy’s ears nor the language-processing center of his brain have suddenly malfunctioned, which was his first instinct as to an explanation.

“Oh,” Ed says.  “ _Oh_ —Mustang—” He’s laughing now, and Roy is fucked, and would it be unspeakably cruel to blame all of this on Nate?  Just because he’s still teething doesn’t make it any less his fault.  “He was tryin’ to say ‘Not liable to starve in the next five minutes’.  I’d bet you anything Win said that to Al once, and he picked it up.”

“Fascinating,” Roy says, “how children have evolved sponges for ears.”

“Careful what you say,” Ed says, dropping into a crouch again to smile at Nate.  “You’re okay waiting a little bit?  Don’t need a snack?”

“No,” Nate says.  He holds out a sheep for Roy this time.

“Okay, then,” Ed says, and he stands up but doesn’t start back into the kitchen yet.  “Are _you_ having fun?”

This time, Roy’s relatively sure the question is for him.

“The time of my life,” he says.  He bends—his back will, in time, get its unholy revenge for the endless insults to its venerability, but apparently not just yet—to set the sheep carefully on top of one of its friends.  “Truthfully, it is… it’s very nice.  Peaceful, I suppose.  As long as you don’t mind having me here.”

“Eh,” Ed says, shrugging his left shoulder.  Even knowing the reason, the lopsidedness makes it look decidedly casual, which is charming on Ed—Ed, who has never been blasé about anything in the entirety of his unreasonably exciting life.  “You’re much less annoying than I figured on.  I mean—” The casualness succumbs instantly to a chagrined sort of dread.  “Not that—I was—figuring on anything.  Not like I was—I mean, I didn’t _think_ about it, or—”

Roy’s heart in his ears skips like the beat to an acceleration waltz.  “Ah—”

“Not that I _didn’t_ think—” Ed’s cheeks darken, which he clumsily attempts to cover by running his left hand over his face and then pushing it up into his hair.  “You know what, never—”

“Why, _Edward_ ,” Roy says, infusing it with a deep, thick, rolling hint of a purr.  “You’re blushing.”

“What?” Ed says, flush deepening.  “Bulls—I mean—no, I’m not.  You liar.  Don’t lie.  S’a bad example for kids.  You’ll corrupt him.”

Roy knows better.  He knows a thousand times better; knows a thousand ways; knows inside and out what recklessness will do to both of them.

But he just can’t _help_ himself.

He leans back, planting his hands on the carpet behind him so that he can stretch his body out and tilt his head.  “He’s not the one I’m interested in corrupting, so to speak.”

“Holy—” Ed bites his lip, which does not help to assuage any of the impure thoughts.  “In front of my brother’s kid?   _Shameless_.”

They look at each other for a long, long second, and Ed worries his lip a little harder, and Roy does his absolute damnedest not to let that tip him directly into ruination.  There’s still a sliver of a chance—

“Are you—serious?” Ed asks.  “About—” He waves his hand at the space between them.  “Y’know, just—I mean, the other night, it—seemed like—I mean, if it’s just… for fun, or whatever, or if you really _are_ psychologically incapable of passing up an innuendo any time you see an opportunity, then—that’s totally cool; I get it, and that’s fine; I just…” He stares at the carpet, folds his arms, swallows hard, and shrugs lightly.  Roy suspects that one of these things is less sincere than the others.  “I just kinda want to know.  Is all.  If—”

Water hisses, and copper clatters, and Roy finds his feet before even registering the reason—Ed turns, too; simultaneously they see the pot on the stove boiling over.

Ed curses under his breath, scrambling into the kitchen with Roy at his heels.  He drops to the metal knee to mop up the floor, managing, “Can you—?”, and Roy’s already reaching for the burner dial as he says “Yes.”

Fifteen seconds and a dishrag resolve the crisis, which confirms it as a specimen of Roy’s favorite kind—the easy ones.  Two additional seconds see Ed standing upright, and Roy miscalculating the required distance of a step back—the one he takes isn’t nearly large enough to put any breathing room between them.

“Um,” Ed says.  “I—sorry.  Thanks.”

“Of course,” Roy says.  “Nothing to be sorry for.”

Since apparently they haven’t done quite enough of it just yet, they stare at each other just a little bit more.

“I—” Ed says.  “Uh—Nate.  He—”

“Right,” Roy says, and they both move to start towards the living room at the same time, which results in a matching pair of awkward shuffles as they try to reorient themselves, and then somehow Roy ends up stepping over the threshold first, and—

His heart plummets and takes his stomach with it the instant the room comes into focus.

Nate’s raised hands hover, trembling slightly, near his neck—which, alone, would justify alarm; together with the faint, high, wet-rasping squeal of a sound that emerges when he tries to breathe—

Roy scans the floor—tiny chickens, tiny sheep; he counts groups of four cows at a time, and seven groups of four is—

“Twenty-eight cows yesterday,” Roy says.  “Twenty-seven now.”

A remnant of Ed’s voice drags Roy’s gaze away from Nate—all the color has drained from Ed’s face— “Holy shit, holy shit, I—” He sinks to his knees, reaches out, freezes with his hands halfway to Nate’s wrists.  “Wait, _fuck_ , it’s—it’s different—for kids, the thing you do—otherwise you fuck up their diaphragm, and their lungs, or—” He looks down at his hands, which have started shaking so hard that the automail rattles, loud enough for Roy to hear over his own heartbeat, and the bitterness in Ed’s voice is startling.  “Especially if your fucking _hand_ is—”

“That’s if they’re younger than one,” Roy says, kneeling beside him and gingerly gathering Nate up into both arms, turning his torso, _refusing_ to let the adrenaline hike him up to vertigo— “At this age—”

He guides the squirming toddler in his grip, tilting Nate forward, head angled towards the floor, and drives three sharp, swift blows with the flat of his hand directly into the space between the tiny shoulder-blades.  He was quick enough that Nate doesn’t start to writhe, trying to escape the torment, until he’s already been pulled up onto his tiny feet—the better for Roy to wrap his left fist inside his right hand, settle them at the apex of the miniature ribcage, and push the bend of his thumb knuckle up and in.

The first thrust makes Nate convulse, then wheeze, and the helpless sound of _agony_ that escapes from Ed almost shatters Roy’s forced composure—he can’t afford that; can’t afford to think; can’t afford to _wait_ ; can’t afford to second-guess—

Not now.

The second push summons a miserable half-sobbing sound from Nate—and sends a very small, very slick cow up out of his mouth and onto the floor.

Silence settles, and Nate hitches in a weak, unsteady, but undeniable deep breath.

Then he employs it for a full-throated wail of infant anguish.

“Oh, no,” Ed says, and he’s scooping the child out of Roy’s lap, standing, and hiking Nate up into both arms, cradling him against the softer shoulder.  “I know, kiddo; I _know_ —I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  It’s okay, bud.  You’re okay.”  He draws Nate away from his chest again, attempting to look his nephew in the eyes despite the copious quantity of huge, gleaming tears in the way, and the evident fact that Nate’s still howling like a banshee.  “You are okay, aren’t you?  Does anything hurt?  Do you need to go to the hospital?  We can take you.  We can get dinner after.  Are you okay?”

If anything, the howling increases in volume.  Roy clenches his jaw so that he won’t cringe; on the off-chance that Nate can see him well enough to gauge facial expressions, he imagines that displaying his own distress would make all of this worse.

“Okay,” Ed says, wrapping Nate back up in both arms again, then pacing the floor and jogging him gently with every step.  “Okay.  I got you.”  He shifts Nate over to the right arm, the better to stroke the dark hair and the curve of Nate’s back soothingly with his left hand.  “I got you.  You’re okay.  I’m sorry, kiddo.  I’m so sorry.  It’s okay.”

A great deal more pacing, stroking, and soft words follow, and the wailing dampens down to crying, which then gradually fades out into intermittent whimpering, which finally peters out into blessed silence.

Ed rocks Nate back and forth a few more times before crossing the living room and sitting down on the couch.

“Are you gonna be ready for dinner soon?” Ed asks.  Nate manages to peel himself off of Ed’s shoulder long enough for Ed to fish a tissue out of one pocket and wipe carefully at the streaming button nose.  “It’s okay if you need a couple more minutes.”

Nate’s bottom lip pushes out into the beginning of a pout.

“Wanna play Farm,” he says.

Ed’s face tightens, and then he tries to force it to work itself into a smile.  “Why don’t we play somethin’ else?”

“Wanna play _Farm_ ,” Nate says.  He points—somewhat accusingly, Roy feels—in the direction of the little barnyard.  “S’not _finished_.”

“What about crayons?” Ed asks, but Nate’s pout doesn’t budge at the quaver in his voice.  “You can—crayons you can do at the kitchen table, right where I can see you, huh?  How does that sound?”

“Don’ _wanna_ draw,” Nate says.  “Wanna _Farm_.”

“C’mon, kiddo,” Ed says, and the quaver deepens and starts to take on a damp edge that’s terrifying.  “You—you love drawing.  It’s real fun.  Maybe Roy’ll draw with you.  Please?”

“ _No_ ,” Nate says.

“I have an idea,” Roy says.  He gets up, crosses to the couch, sits down, and looks Nate directly in the eyes.  “Before your wonderful uncle’s overloaded endocrine system sends him into an untimely cardiac arrest—why don’t we do both?  Why don’t we draw pictures of the farm animals?  You and me together.”

Nate eyes him mistrustfully for a long, long, long series of seconds.  Just in case some fool had been harboring an iota of doubt, Roy can confirm that this boy is an Elric, through and through.

“Okay,” Nate says, slowly.

“Wonderful,” Roy says.

Ed set Nate gently on the couch cushion beside him and dives for one of the bags near the couch, hauling paper and crayons out of it as swiftly as his shaking hands will allow.  “Heck of a negotiator,” he remarks to Roy.  “No wonder they pay you top dollar for that stuff.”

“Not my normal target audience,” Roy says, holding both arms out to Nate, and hoisting him once he starts reaching back.  He’s heavier than he looks, but still so damn _small_ —tiny fingers, tiny face, tiny bones.  “But I strive to be adaptable.”  He stands again and bounces Nate on his hip, which seems like the right thing to do for reasons that he will not be consulting Maes about, and then starts towards the kitchen to settle Nate in the chair with the little booster seat fixed on it.  “What do you want to draw first?”

“Pig,” Nate says.

“A fine idea,” Roy says.  Ed sets the box of crayons down on the tabletop.  At this rate, Roy imagines that Nate will graduate to color-coding those instead of sorting animals relatively soon.  “What colors would you like?”

“Pink,” Nate says.  “An’… brown.”

“Excellent,” Roy says, digging through the box, which appears to contain every shade of every color that a human being ever dreamed up on hallucinogens.  “Here we are.  Are these all right?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, accepting his selections.  “Thanks.”

Having deposited the last of the art supplies on the table, Ed heads directly to the stove, pours pasta into the pot, and then starts shuffling things around.  A skillet comes out, and then he’s digging in the icebox…

“What’re _you_ gonna draw?” Nate asks without lifting his gaze from his work.

“I don’t know,” Roy says.  “What would you like me to draw?”

Nate looks up to consider him very seriously for several seconds.

“Sheep,” he says.

“Sheep it is,” Roy says, settling in the chair beside him and sorting through the box.

He’s had a few false starts followed by one blocky sketch that’s relatively promising by the time Ed returns to the table, collapses into the chair across from them, raises both arms like they’re lead weights, plants his elbows on the tabletop, and drops his head into his hands.

“What are you making?” Roy asks as he selects a black crayon to add some ears to one of his sheep.

Ed’s head doesn’t rise from where he’s resting his face in both open palms.  “Mac’n cheese.  With chicken.  ’N broccoli.  Except we call ’em ‘yummy trees’.”

“Of course we do,” Roy says.

“Dis a chicken,” Nate says, pointing to a scribble of brown with some red on the side.

“I can see that,” Roy says, which is the most benevolent lie he’s ever told.  “That’s very nice.”

“Thanks,” Nate says, bending to his opus again.

“Ed,” Roy says, very softly, “you know what they say.”

“No, I don’t,” Ed says into his hands, a bit darkly, “but I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“I am,” Roy says.  “The adage I was thinking of is ‘No harm, no foul’.”

Ed raises his head just enough to display one of his well-practiced glares.  “You’n I both know that’s _bullsh_ —” He looks startled, then swallows, then grits his teeth and works his way back up to a glower.  “You know what it is.”

“No lasting damage,” Roy says.  “That’s the important thing—the only important thing.  Th—”

“It’s not the only d—” Teeth-gritting again.  “ _Darn_ important thing, Roy.  The important thing’s that I’m _fired_ as a f—flipping uncle, because I can’t even keep him safe for _five minutes_ , and—”

“Yes, you can,” Roy says.  “Mistakes are how we learn—his, ours.  And the important thing is—”

“Would you _listen_ to me for a second?” Ed says.

“No,” Roy says.  “Because you’re blaming yourself for something that was bound to happen even if you’d watched him like a hawk every second he was here.  Children explore.  Sometimes they hurt themselves doing it.  That’s the nature of it.  Elysia almost died when she was four.  Gracia set a bottle of a household cleaner down for just a moment, and Elysia was playing tea party right nearby—you can guess the rest.  They pumped her stomach, and everyone learned a painful lesson, but they’re all _right_ , Ed.  Everything’s all right.  This wasn’t your fault, and you—”

“I don’t want anyone,” Ed says, slightly thickly, “ _any_ kid, ’specially not any kid of _Al’s_ , to have to learn the kinds of painful lessons we did.  Not fucking ever.  I don’t—”

“You don’t get to decide,” Roy says.  “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.  All you can do is the best that you can, and that’s exactly what you’ve _been_ doing.  Al and Winry wouldn’t ask or want any more of you than that.”

Ed sits back and folds his arms.  He sets his jaw and then works it for a few seconds, swallowing, as he keeps his glare fixed on the wall.

A tiny finger taps on Roy’s hand.  “Please?” Nate asks.

Roy realizes, perhaps rather slowly, that he wants the black crayon.  “Of course.  Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Nate murmurs.

When Roy glances up again, Ed’s looking back at him.

“How’d you know to do that?” Ed asks.  “The—with the choking.”

“I looked it up,” Roy says.

Ed blinks, and then his eyes narrow.  “ _You_ looked up how to stop toddlers from choking?  When the heck did you have time to do that?”

“Last night,” Roy says.

Ed stares at him.

“I was trying to be prepared just in case something went wrong,” Roy says.  “You never know.”

Ed stares harder.  “You applied your special insomniac paranoia thing to being ready for me to suck at babysitting?”

“You don’t suck at babysitting,” Roy says.  “You’re incredible.  I would have run marathons as a child to get to spend time with an uncle like you.”

Ed raises an eyebrow.

“The librarians used to kick me out at closing time,” Roy says.  “Sometimes they’d give me an extra fifteen minutes, because they felt sorry for me.  Running would have been the worst punishment I could dream of.”

Ed nods a little, and then his gaze drops to Nate, whose surprisingly-genetically-plausible brown head is bent over his crayon masterpieces.

“I just—” Ed draws a deep breath and lets it out slow, spreading both hands on the tabletop.  “I just don’t want any other kids in this family to have to go through—you know.  Anything like what we did.  Not _ever_.”  Before Roy can speak, he laughs, weakly, and lifts his left hand to push his hair back.  “I can’t believe you did child research to back me up when you didn’t even know you were gonna be here today.”

Roy tries not to smile too wryly.  “I live in hope.”

“Yeah, right,” Ed says.  “You live in feverishly over-prepared pessimism, like maybe if you just plan hard enough, you’ll be able to force things to go your way.”

Roy musters up a rueful smile.  With any luck, it looks more roguish than pitiful.  “It works out to be the same thing.”

Ed eyes him.

“I have to believe in something,” Roy says.  “Why not the concept that if I pour enough desperation into any given objective, it will eventually bend to my will?”

“That’s a real fancy way of dressing up ‘equivalent exchange’,” Ed says.

“I know,” Roy says.  “I picked it up from you.”

Ed’s expression changes, but then he’s glancing down as Nate pushes an extremely waxy, colorful piece of paper across the table to him.

“Iss for you, Uncle Ed,” Nate says.

“Holy cow,” Ed says—then winces, then covers, then recovers.  “Your parents know you can draw like this?  They’ll try to sell your stuff to a museum.”

Nate’s face lights up.  “You like it?”

“You kidding?” Ed says, heaving himself up out of the chair and taking it in both hands.  “I love it.  I’m gonna put it on the fridge right now.”

“Roy’s, too,” Nate says.

Ed appears to be swallowing a laugh.  The indignity of it doesn’t even sting detectably under the swell of relief.  “Oh, yeah?  Gimme yours, Roy.”

Reluctantly, Roy cedes the paper.  “I think I’ll keep my day job,” he says.  “I never thought I’d say this, but transmutation circles are _very_ easy.”

“This really isn’t bad,” Ed says, and by the arch of his eyebrows, he means it.  He flashes a grin that rings rather less sincere.  “All that doodling you do at work finally paid off.”

“At long last,” Roy says.

“I’ll put ’em both up,” Ed says.  “And I’ll have you guys sign ’em after dinner, so when you’re famous artists, they’ll be worth a million cens.”

Roy would not say he’s _fond_ , precisely, of the mental image he gets of Ed auctioning his crayon rendition of a sheep off at a major governmental function, but he’s definitely had worse.

  


* * *

  


Somehow, he ends up loitering again while Ed spirits Nate away for a bath later in the night.  That strategy worked out so well last time; he’s a marvelous strategist.  Groundbreaking.  Record-setting.  Exemplary.  Utterly ext—

The phone rings.

“Can you get that?” Ed hollers from the direction of the bathroom.  “Uh—please?”

“It’s probably your brother,” Roy calls back.

“I know,” Ed says.  “Just keep him on the line for five minutes while I get the soap off.”  A pause.  “…please.”

“All right,” Roy says, which it is not, as he slings himself up from the couch and crosses to the kitchen for the phone.  He picks it up and, on instinct, cradles it to his ear with his shoulder to free both hands.  “Elric residence.”

He hears a slight crackle on the line—without which, in the silence, he’d assume that it was dead.

“Hello?” he attempts.

“Sorry,” Alphonse’s voice says.  “I… wasn’t expecting you, General.  Ah—sorry.  Long day.  How—how are you?”

“Just fine,” Roy says, which also isn’t true.  “Nate’s in the bath, if you’ve got a moment to wait.  I imagine he’d love to hear from you.”

“That’s what I’m hoping, at least,” Al says.  “How is he?”

“Excellent,” Roy says, and then he has to fight to keep the wince off of his face, since Al is more than sharp enough to hear it in his voice.  “There was… we had a very minor incident, but everything’s fine.  I think Ed might break into my home and murder me in my sleep if I tell you my side of the story, whether or not it’s much less biased.”

“Hmm,” Al says, calmly.  “If Brother was going to kill you, he’d look you in the eyes and do it fair and square.  Now, _me_ , on the other hand…” The volume of his voice drops slightly, as if he’s turning to speak to someone else.  “We’re talking about Nate, of course.  What does it sound like?”

“Would you like to leave a number?” Roy asks.  “I could have Ed call you back as soon as—”

“I’m enjoying interrogating you, actually,” Al says, because of course he does.  Maes would weep with pride.  “How’s Ed, by the way?  I hope he’s having fun.  He… stresses.”

“He does,” Roy says.  “And he’s done a bit of that, but by and large—”

“By and moderately-sized,” Al says.

“Thank you,” Roy says.  “By and moderately-sized, I think he’s been enjoying it.  He’s laying himself down on the floor for Nate to walk on, naturally, but at this point I think he finds that fulfilling, so as long as he doesn’t have to do this _every_ weekend, I imagine it will be very beneficial for all of you.”

Alphonse pauses for long enough that Roy has actually parted his lips to ask if he’s still there when the response comes.

“With all due respect, General,” Al says, “you are suspiciously invested in my brother’s well-being.”

“Just nail him already,” a faint voice that sounds like Winry’s says.  “He needs it.  You need it.  Problem solved.”

“Honey,” Al says, “I think you need some sleep.”

“An entire friggin’ day of it, probably,” Winry says.  “But I’m still right.”

“Winry,” Al says slowly, “they’re coworkers.”

“So are we,” she says.  “Technically, I mean, but in all the ways that count.  What’s so wrong with it?  Ed’s wanted to get a piece of Roy’s ass since he was thirteen.”

“Oh, Lord,” Roy hears his rat bastard traitor of a voice say, albeit weakly.

“Honey,” Al says again, even more soothingly this time, “I really think—”

“I’m not going to sleep until after I talk to my baby,” she says.  “Tough noogies, babe.”

“You’ve been up since five the day we left.”

“So’ve you.”

“I got a nap.”

“You’re wasting your chance to torture the guy who’s probably gonna put his tongue down your brother’s throat.  And maybe other things elsewh—”

Al clears his throat so loudly that Roy has to hold the phone away from his ear for a second.

“I think I made myself clear on the shovel-speech front,” Al says.  “Any questions?”

“Just one,” Roy says.  “And it’s ‘Why, God?’, so I’m not sure you’re authorized to answer.”

Al laughs, ever so slightly darkly.  “Yeah, that one’s… challenging.  You know, it doesn’t… it doesn’t have to be… I know it’s terrifying, for people like you—like both of you, I mean.  All-or-nothing people.  And you’ve got so much to _do_.  I know that.  I know all about that—too much about it, really.  But it doesn’t have to be claws and teeth and armor, you know?  Ed… he gets so prickly that there’s nowhere to touch him when he’s scared, but if you just… if you can wait him out, and stay soft enough that he starts to wonder, he’ll start to give back what he’s getting.  He always does.  And I know you can give him a run for his money on the stubbornness—you’re one of a very select few human beings on the planet who can.  So… just… think about it.”

“Or nail him first,” Winry says, “and _then_ think about it.”

“Hon—”

“It’s _Ed_ ,” she says.  “Actions speak real loud, and he can’t pretend he didn’t hear them.  Toss him into the deep end, and he’ll realize he likes swimming once he’s already started.”

Al sighs feelingly.  “Well, that’s… two perspectives.  Maybe that’ll help a little bit to steer you, if nothing e—”

A door opens, and Ed says “Hey!”, and then he’s quick-shuffling in from the hall with a towel-swaddled Nate clutched in his arms.  “Hand that thing over; I wanna—”

“Here he is now,” Roy says, very distinctly, into the phone before he hands the receiver to Ed.

“Hey, nerd,” Ed says delightedly.  He pauses, grinning.  “’Cause it didn’t matter if it was you or Winry.  You’re both nerds.”  He pauses again, for longer this time, and the grin only widens.  “’Course you can.  Tell her from me that the trains are impossible for sleeping on, so she better do it now instead of counting on tomorrow.”  He offers the phone to Nate.  “You wanna talk to your mom and dad, kiddo?”

Nate’s exchange with his parents mostly consists of several one-word answers—most of them either “Yes” or “No”, which Roy supposes is probably a good thing this close to bedtime; the last thing any of them should do is overwhelm him at this stage.  There’s also a phase of “We played Farm.  Lotsa Farm.  Me and Roy.  He drew with me.  Uncle Ed’n I went to the park, and I went on the slide, and we watched clouds,” which is an extremely impressive and coherent narrative considering that Nate seems to be new to complete sentences.  After a few more affirmations and a “Love you”, Nate hands the phone back to Ed, adding solemnly, “S’for you.”

“Thank you,” Ed says, raising it to his ear.  “How are you guys?  How’s the patient holding up?”  His eyes flicker back and forth slightly, as if he’s reading text on a page, as he listens.  “Got it.  Yeah, that’s rough.  Stable so far, though?”  He nods in the next pause, and Roy motions, perhaps none too gracefully, towards the door, and starts to mouth something noncommittal about it being late— “That’s goo— _don’t you dare, you coward_.”

Roy freezes on instinct, which is very likely going to spell his untimely end.

“The first night’s the worst,” Ed is saying, perfectly pleasant again.  “As far as I remember, anyway.  Which isn’t especially reliable for obvious reasons, but—y’know.  Still.”  He blinks, listening, and then he smiles.  “Great!  He’s amazing.  You made a real nice gene-splice, in case nobody’s told you that in so many words yet.  We’ve been having lots of fun, and he’s counting way higher than anybody his age has any right to, and he’s been eating really well and stuff.  Slept through the night last night, too.  And took all his you-know-whats without a single complaint.  You sure you’re not slippin’ him anything to make him docile?  Aren’t these supposed to be the ‘terrible twos’ or something?”

Roy sits down on the couch again.  It’s a more comfortable place to await his doom, and he can still watch Ed and Nate through the kitchen doorway.

“Whatever,” Ed says.  “Point is—yeah, ’course you can.  Good to know you don’t wanna talk to _me_ , after all the stuff we went through and everything I’ve done for you—” He’s grinning.  “Yeah, yeah, you, too.  Jerk.  Wait—is that okay to say?  I could call you a meanie.  You’re a meanie.”  He hands the phone to Nate.  “They wanna talk to you again, bud.”

“Hullo?” Nate asks, extremely seriously, holding the phone speaker spare centimeters from his mouth.  He listens intently for a few seconds, then says, “Yeah,” then “Okay,” then “Love you, Mama,” and then “G’bye” before handing the phone to Ed again.

“Hey, thanks for checking in,” Ed says.  “We’ll see you guys soon.  Get some darn sleep, Winry, you maniac.  Love you guys.  G’night.”

He hangs up.

He bounces Nate in his arms.

He points an imperious metal finger at Roy.

“Don’t you move,” he says.

Then he ghosts off down the hall again, spiriting Nate into the bedroom, and Roy revels in the dulcet tones of Ed reading the same mind-numbingly simplistic books as yesterday.

He should have brought something to do.  He honestly didn’t intend to stay—he really, truly didn’t this time.  He cleaned up the toys again while Nate was in the bath, and packed them away in what seemed to be the appropriate places; hopefully Alphonse will give his organizational skills a stamp of approval, or at the very least blame it on Ed.

Hopefully the sky will fall and crush him before the feelings ever get a chance.

He knows that’s extreme—and, worse, ungrateful.  He knows, on a logical level, that every moment with breath in his lungs and a pulse in his chest is a blessing; he knows that he does not deserve a single iteration of either one.  He knows that he’s been living on borrowed time more years now than not.  He knows he’s been a lost cause for most of them.

But some days it is hard to make himself remember that good things do happen, sometimes—sometimes even to people like him.  Some days it is hard to make himself remember that the universe’s indifference occasionally falls in his favor.  Some days it is hard to make himself remember that risking more than he wants to part with sometimes pays off.

Some days it is hard to make himself remember that bravery is a thousand times more complicated than campaigning for what’s right.  Some days what’s ‘right’ is a tangle of interconnected consequences so dense and so deep that none of them have the slightest hope of extracting an end of it.

Some days, courage looks like sitting on Edward Elric’s couch, listening to a badly-rhymed mnemonic about the alphabet, waiting to discover just how difficult a hand he’s been dealt to play.  Some days, courage means nothing more than staying very still and listening to the cadence of your own heartbeat instead of running while you can.

So he sits.

Some very quiet conversation follows the last book—which is, appropriately enough, about farm animals—and then the door shuts gently, and then footsteps proceed down the hall towards him, and then—

He should have known that this was coming from the first time that Ed, coming into view, felt like a revelation.  He should have known the first time a gleam of light on Ed’s hair took his breath away; the first time he caught himself dragging his gaze, slowly and reverently, along the line of Ed’s jaw.  He should have known the first time he let his eyes skim slowly over the curve of the shoulders, follow them down the sharp lines of the torso and the waist—

He should have known a long, long time ago, and he should have moved to Creta and changed his name the instant that he realized what it meant.

Ed drops onto the couch beside him, though with a slightly larger—and less dangerous—distance between them this time.

“I didn’t know kids were your thing,” Ed says.

“They’re not,” Roy says.  “I didn’t know they were yours.”

“They’re not,” Ed says.  He pauses.  “Well—I mean, _this_ one is, but that’s just evolutionary imperative.”

“You’ve always been good with kids,” Roy says.  “Elysia used to babble about you and your brother and Winry for hours at a time.”

He doesn’t mention the other little girl that stole Ed’s heart without him ever noticing he’d left it open for the taking.  Both of them remember well enough.

“I always _liked_ ’em,” Ed says.  “But I never… whatever.  It’s different.  You know what I mean.”  He smiles slightly.  “What’s weird is how different it was for _you_.”

Roy swallows.  This feels like tiptoeing along a tightrope stretched over an alligator-infested swamp immediately after a shower in barbecue sauce.

“I could tell that you could handle it,” he says, slowly, “but I… wanted to offer my help.  That’s all.  I value—”

Ed scoots across the cushion between them, reaches out, and hooks his right hand around the back of Roy’s neck.  The automail is cold, but more delicate than he’d expected—more delicate, certainly, than any of the other times he’s shaken it, or batted it away from a confidential report or a vulnerable paperweight or a bunsen burner flame.

It’s cold, and Ed is—

Pulling him closer, drawing him in, eyes flicking down to his mouth again—and fixing there, and then sliding slowly upward to lock onto his—

The articulated steel fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck and tug just a touch more, and he leans into the prompting despite himself.

Ed tilts his head, shifts forward, and seals their mouths together, and—

And _God_ , he’s everything—

He’s everything.  He’s everything and paradise and heaven and a dream.

Another thing Roy should have known: Edward Elric is love and heat and glory incarnate.  No one could ever hope to fight that and win.  Resistance is a worthy endeavor for its own sake, but surrender has always been inevitable.  Roy never stood a chance.

Ed catches Roy’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugs on it for half a second—Roy can _feel_ the playful curve of a smile as Ed relents before he can protest, then shifts in closer, and both of Roy’s hands collide with Ed’s left; he was raising them to try for a delightfully romantic little graze of knuckles across Ed’s cheek.  It’s strangely comforting to know that Ed’s instincts, even at a time like this, refuse to let Roy have anything like what he expects.

Ed breathes half a laugh into his mouth at their coordinated clumsiness, and a part of Roy wants to object, but the rest of him has other ideas—specifically, to slide his hands up Ed’s chest, over his collarbones, to settle one on either side of his neck, fingertips gliding up into the wispy butter-bright hairs along his hairline—

Not that Roy can see them, exactly, since his eyes are still closed, but he knows they’re there.  He knows precisely how pale they are in direct light; how a sunbeam sparks against them; how they stick to sweat in summer and how they curl tightly against Ed’s skin when they’re just starting to dry.  He shouldn’t know any of those things, most likely, but it’s too late for that.  It’s been too late for a long time.

He has to stop thinking and just— _appreciate_ this; a maelstrom mix of gorgeous hell and pure divinity doesn’t hurl itself at his mouth every day, after all.  He doesn’t know what this is for, or what it means, or if he’ll ever have this opportunity aga—

Ed draws back—just far enough that their eyelashes brush against each other as Ed’s slowly, slowly, _slowly_ rise.

“That’s your exchange,” Ed says, but the way his eyes won’t leave Roy’s mouth, and his cheeks have flushed hot, and his tongue darts across his upper lip tells a slightly different story.  It’s the sort of story where the prologue alone makes Roy’s heart clamor and his knees quake and his blood yearn for more.  “For—y’know.  Helping.  A lot.”

“I would have done that anyway,” Roy says.  “It was my pleasure, in fact.  So it’s me that needs to come up with something to exchange for what you just gave me, isn’t it?”

Ed starts to frown.  “N—”

“How’s dinner?” Roy asks.  “Next weekend, perhaps?  If you don’t have any other commitments, I mean.”

Ed stares at him.

“Ah,” Roy says, and swallowing hard and deliberately almost displaces his heart from where it’s clambered up his throat and fixed itself there, banging like a bass drum.  “I—assumed—well.  Never m—”

“Shut up a second,” Ed says, as if Roy has ever been capable of so doing in his entire life.  “You—what?  You _want_ me?”

Roy wondered.  He couldn’t help wondering, but it felt invasive to contemplate the possibility that one of the reasons Ed has stayed unattached for so long is that he honestly doesn’t believe himself worthy of the attention of the sort of person that he’d be attracted to.

Which leaves the ball in Roy’s court.  And the ball is on fire, and the net of his racquet is disintegrating from the last few forays, and despite being out of breath, his only choice—the only choice there ever is with Ed—is to return the same caliber of open, absolute honesty.

Even if it means losing.  Even if it means destruction.  Even if it’s the beginning of the end.

“Yes,” he says.  “For so long I’m not sure I remember how to do anything else.”

The tentative grin that parts Ed’s lips makes up for a lot of the world’s ills, so possibly— _possibly_ —that’s all right.

“Yeah?” Ed says.  “Translating from the way you talk around stuff three times, that sounds like enough to go on.”

“Sometimes it’s not,” Roy says, trying to keep his voice soft and level and finding the second harder than the first.  “Sometimes—”

Ed leans forward, reaches up, grabs his collar, and hauls him down to kiss him again—hotly, sharply, sweetly, utterly intent—

And draws back just as fast, and his grin’s an act of violence, and oh, _God_ , Roy wants to die here, torn and bruised and bleeding.  Just like this.

“I know you’re pathologically incapable of not trying to plan ahead every chance you get,” Ed says.

“Thank you,” Roy says.

“ _But_ ,” Ed says, loudly, “let’s… just this once.  If it gets to be ‘sometimes’, let’s figure that out then.  For right now…”

“For right now,” Roy says, “how’s next Saturday at seven?”

“Make it six,” Ed says.  “I’m still gonna be sleeping off the toddler hangover.  This shit’s _exhausting_.”

“Six, then,” Roy says.

“Cool,” Ed says.  He hesitates, swallows, glances at the floor, and then looks back up at Roy.  “You—sure about this?  I mean—just—you’ve got a lot to lose.  And I get that.  Hell, I get that a lot better now than I ever did before.”

“The eye of the storm will do that for you,” Roy says.  “It—well.  Yes.  To both.  You are precisely the sort of risk that makes me want to take up thrill-seeking.”

“Don’t,” Ed says.  “Overrated, and doctors never stop asking you about your blood pressure, and you forget how to get to sleep.”

“I imagine I might be able to assist with that,” Roy says.

Ed blinks at him.  Roy arches an eyebrow and slowly unfurls his single cheesiest caddish grin.

“You,” Ed says, “are a disaster.”

“So I’ve been told,” Roy says.

“I bet,” Ed says.  “But—I mean, that’s the thing, about the thrills and shit.  You always wanna run _towards_ ’em.”

Roy listens to his heart beating in his ears for a full three seconds to make sure that he’s alive before he runs the tip of his tongue across his lip.  “Is that so.”

“Wow,” Ed says.  “You know what’s sexy?  You doin’ that terrible fake-question-said-like-a-statement thing.   _Hot_.”

At least the tongue maneuver makes for a very quick transition to biting his lip instead, attempting to hold back a laugh.  “You don’t say.”

“Shit,” Ed says.  “Shit, _fuck_ , why do I even—” He hops up from the couch, waving both hands, but the faint pink flush hasn’t left his cheeks, and the furious gestures don’t look especially genuine.  Roy has several years of experience gauging those.  “Don’t you have bastardly stuff you gotta go do?”

“I’m sure I could invent some,” Roy says.

“Good,” Ed says, dragging his left hand up his face and shoving it through his bangs.  “Perfect.  Whatever it takes to get you out of here before I—before—something happens that I don’t want Al’s kid seein’ if he wakes up and comes to ask for a glass of water.”

Roy tries, valiantly, to stop himself from grinning.  “I take it he’s not the only one who’s thirsty?”

Ed grits his teeth.  “You shut your damn mouth before I find something better for you t—” He makes a faint noise of distress.  “Would you _go_ already?”

Roy’s exits used to be a bit more dashing in the olden days—before the years of sitting behind a desk caught up with the times spent passed out on desert rock, realized that the two of them had quite a lot in common, struck up a rapport, and began systematically destroying his spine.  He usually likes to think that he makes up for some of what he lacks in grace with the usual overpowering quantity of charisma, but Ed has been almost entirely immune to charisma since the age of twelve.

“On one condition,” Roy says once he’s managed to lever his way upright without his body twinging, tweaking, or collapsing in on itself into a vortex of excruciation.

Ed extracts his hand from his hair so that he can fold his arms instead.  “What?”

“I need one more item of exchange,” Roy says.  “For the road, you know.”

Ed eyes him.  “And if I say ‘no’, you’re gonna… what?  Torment me the whole night next weekend?  Make me wish I’d never been born, or never laid eyes on your dumb ass, or never let myself figure out I was—whatever?”

Rarely has the word _whatever_ —buoyed by too many beautiful implications to number; whispering of _interested in men_ and _attracted to you_ and _invested in you as a person, but also invested in jumping every one of your two hundred and six bones_ —sounded quite so tantalizingly melodious.

“Of course not,” Roy says.  “I only ever blackmail other politicians.  It’s a matter of principle, really.”  He flashes the most winsome of his hundred-thousand smiles.  “But I would be terribly dejected.”

“That’s emotional blackmail,” Ed says.

“Middlingly dejected,” Roy says.  “Not a _great_ deal more dejected than usual, but—you know.  Measurably.”

Ed’s trying not to laugh.  “That’s emotional… I don’t even know what that is.”

“Bullshit?” Roy suggests.

“I think that’s redundant, with you,” Ed says.

“Very likely,” Roy says.  He starts for the coatrack—although, in the spirit of never playing fair in love or war or sex or anything that muddles up the three, he supposes that an apter word for the action would be _sashays_.  “I suppose it’s all for the best, since this way I’ll be pining for an entire week, and I’ll arrive on Saturday absolutely brimming with fantas—”

What feel like metal fingers curl into the back of his shirt, hauling on it enough to unbalance him, and then Ed’s other hand catches his elbow to spin him and steady him in a single motion, and then he finds himself with two armfuls of Ed’s body, and a mouthful of Ed’s tongue.

He may just die.  It seems like the most logical reaction.  He will do so utterly content.

Is it typical that every one of Ed’s kisses tells a slightly different story?  This one is _I’ll show you emotional blackmail, you bastard_ , but between the lines, written in ragged half-breaths and a skittering heartbeat, Roy can hear the _Oh, God, yes, why the fuck did we wait so long?_

There are several million permutations of answers to that question.  None of them particularly matter now.

Roy’s impulse is to leave him wanting—to leave him begging; to leave him on the verge of wildness, halfway to his knees to beg for more.  The world has trained him not to show his cards; not to speak the truth; not to offer anyone the run of his ribcage until it’s far too late for them to leave.

But he knows Ed won’t hurt him—not on purpose, anyway, and all the proverbs proclaim that that’s what counts.

He knows he doesn’t have to leave Ed gasping; he knows he doesn’t need to say _I can’t bear the thought of you getting bored of me_ , because he doesn’t need to force Ed to answer _You just saw two days of how patient I can be when it comes to someone that I care for_.

He knows this one’s different.

He knows he’s safe.

And he knows that that’s the most dangerous thing about it.

He draws his hands slowly up over Ed’s shoulders to cradle his jaw again, and he finds himself smiling into the kiss—which is ludicrous; kissing is an intensely serious business, after all, and no one has any right to _enjoy_ it this much.

Ed releases the vise grip on Roy’s shirt, and they slide apart again.  If Roy is not mistaken, the reluctance is not restricted to his side of separation.

“Okay,” Ed says, panting detectably.  “Shit.  Okay.  Um.  Saturday.  Six.”

Roy should have pressed harder—oh… dear—for seven.  Six sounds too much like… something else.

“Perfect,” he says instead of pointing it out, which would make all of this worse and also out him as a hungry, desperate, lovelorn rake.  He has _some_ dignity.

“Yeah,” Ed says, and the breathless grin is such an obscenely beautiful expression on him that Roy knows, instantly, with a sinking certainty in the bottoms of his lungs and the marrow of his bones, that there is nothing he wouldn’t do to put it back on Ed’s face.

He has a few ideas about how.

“All right,” Ed says.  “Get gone, or—nothing.  Get gone, or nothing.  Those are your two options.  I know how this works.”

“Do you,” Roy asks, shrugging his coat on and starting for the door.  “I suppose we’ll have to see about that.”

“You know me,” Ed says, and Roy _does_ , and that’s the cruelest, sweetest part of it, and it is far too late to escape.  “I love a challenge.”

“As do I,” Roy says, which is easier to articulate than any of the other things it means.  He softens the usual parting smile.  “Goodnight, Ed.”

“G’night, asshole,” Ed says.  “Drive safe out there.”

“I’ll do my best,” Roy says, and he pulls the door gently shut behind him.

He even meant it.  For once, he has something to look forward to—something precious enough to merit caution in the otherwise meaningless minutiae of an ordinary life.

He breathes, deep and slow, and can’t help smiling up at the splash of starlight overhead.  A part of him is baffled past belief that any of this happened at all—but Roy Mustang is not, as the saying goes, in the habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

He doesn’t need an explanation.  Some things—maybe most things—are better off without one, and the results are what matter in the end.

All he knows for sure is that he’s going to send Al and Winry an expansive gift basket and an extremely nice note.


End file.
